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LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



BY 

JOSEPH FORT NEWTON 

Author of "David Swing: Poet- Preacher" 




CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA 

THE TORCH PRESS 

1910 






Copyright 1910 by 
The Torch Press 



Published November. 1910 



rHE TORCH PRESf 

CEDAR RAPIOS 

IOWA 



TO 

josephine kate 
"the blessed baby" 
with love and joy 



CONTENTS 

The Junior Partner 1 

"Lincoln & Herndon" 21 

"The Genius op Discord" 53 

Herndon and Parker 88 

The Revolt op Douglas 127 

The Great Debates 166 

The Closing Debates 205 

Lincoln's Herndon 237 

The Later Herndon 280 

Herndon 's Lincoln 311 

The Senior Partner 333 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Abraham Lincoln in 1858 
Office of Lincoln & Herndon . 
Theodore Parker 
Stephen A. Douglas . 
The Charleston Debate . 
The ''Wigwam" in Chicago, 1860 
Jesse W. Weik .... 
"William H. Herndon in 1884 . 





. frontispiece 




facing p. 42 ' 




facing p. 100 




facing p. 190 




facing p. 212 




facing p. 271 ^ 
facing p. 305 ^ 
facing p. 323 / 







FOREWORD 

Whoso sends forth another Lincoln book, of which there 
nre so many, must show cause why it should be read. It is 
believed that the present volume will prove its own excuse 
for being, by virtue of the new material which it contains, if 
for no other reason. It is not a biography of Lincoln, nor a 
detailed account of the life of Herndon, but a study of their 
personal and political fellowship in working out the solution 
of a great human problem; and it should be judged by its 
spirit, its purpose, and its record of facts. 

Every study of the kind, by the very nature of its material, 
presents difficulties in the matter of arrangement and form, 
not all of which have been overcome in this instance. Letters 
impede the narrative, when they do not divert attention from 
it, so that what is gained in color is lost in movement; and 
the aim has been to repeat as little as possible of what every 
biographer and historian must recite. Many figures cross the 
page, to each of whom the author has meant to be just, though 
it has not been easy to keep the balance when they were so 
often unjust to each other. Also; in view of the real service 
of Herndon to Lincoln, it has required some effort to be 
charitable to those members of the writing fraternity who have 
so persistently belittled the junior member of the firm. 

For the use of the Herndon-Parker letters, here published 
for the first time, my thanks are due to Mr. F. B. Sanborn, 
whose wealth of such materials is only surpassed by his gen- 
erosity to his younger fellow students. He it was who saw 
the value of those intense and vivid letters as revealing much 
of the inner history of the period, making some things clear 
that had hitherto been dim — though he need not be held 
to account for the use here made of them. INIy thanks are also 
due to Mr. Horace White, for the letters of Mr. Herndon writ- 



ten during the last year of his life; to Mr. Jesse W. Weik, 
for access to the Herndon manuscripts ; and to Mr, Henry B. 
Rankin, whose reminiscences and suggestions were invaluable. 
Similarly, the Illinois Historical Society was most helpful, and 
Mrs. Annie Fleury, a daughter of Mr. Herndon, rendered 
every aid within her power. 

Such a study suggests many reflections. One who looks 
back over that stormy era, when the life of the nation hung 
in a balance, will have no need to walk the floor for fear of 
the future, assured that should an hour of danger strike a 
man will step forth to meet it. Having weathered such a 
storm, this republic has nothing to fear except a decay of man. 
liood, a forgetting of principles, and a fading of ideals. Once 
divided in all save name, it is now united in fact, in spirit, 
in historic memories, and patriotic hopes — Lincoln himself a 
"mystic cord of memory," of more power for the safety and 
sanctity of the nation than its army and navy. So it will be 
in times to come, if its citizens "here highly resolve" to fol- 
low no leader who, in his private character and public coun- 
sels, does not practice a like moderation, justice, firmness, and 
gentleness of spirit. 

If this book, written by the son of a Southern soldier, as- 
sists, even in a little way, to a clearer understanding of the 
greatest figure in our history, who was at once a child of the 
South and a leader of the North, it will have done what it was 
sincerely meant to do. J. F. N. 

September 4, 1910 



INTEODUCTION 

Before leaving America on what was to be his last journey, 
in January, 1859, Theodore Parker communicated to me his 
wish that I should be one of his three executors, with special 
charge of the posthumous publication of his writings. The 
other two executors, John Manley of Boston and Frederick 
May of Dorchester — a first cousin of Mrs. Bronson Alcott — 
were capable men of business, and good friends of mine, as 
of Parker, but not specially devoted to scholarship and letters. 
I acted with them in the settlement of the estate, and was 
ready to proceed with the literary task ; but Mrs. Parker had 
formed the opinion that Joseph Lyman, another good friend 
of Parker, was the proper person for editor; and I did not 
press my claim as executor. Perhaps in recognition of this 
conduct, but with no previous notice to me, Mrs. Parker, at 
her death, years after, bequeathed me all her husband's man- 
uscripts, copyrights, and correspondence, so far as the same 
had been preserved in her own hands — many of the original 
letters having been returned to the writers or destroyed. 

Among those originals I found the whole of the five years' 
correspondence between Parker and Herndon, the law-partner 
of Abraham Lincoln for more than twenty years. I saw the 
historical and political value of this peculiar interchange of 
opinion and fact, by which Parker was brought near the mind 
of one of his latest friends, who was to complete the work of 
slave-emancipation — in which Parker had been active for 
nearly twenty years before his death — and was to die as the 
second great martyr in the cause of American emancipation. 
But it was not convenient for me to edit these letters ; nor was 
the time ripe for this, thirty years ago. This Mr. Newton 
has now done with research and discretion, collating, correct- 
ing, and combining the mass of material accumulated since 
Lincoln's death, and contributing his own verdict on the char- 
acters and events of the crisis. He has added new material, 



bearing on the relations between Lincoln and Herndon, to 
whom earlier writers have by no means done justice ; but who 
in this book stands revealed in his actual character, as the 
most important witness and chronicler of his partner's career. 
He writes from his own point of \iew, and w^ith the advantage 
that lapse of time gives to the seeker after that most elusive 
chameleon, historical truth. It is a work w^ell done, and will 
stand the test of after years, which unsparingly judge the 
mere eulogy or invective that would pass for biography. 

In the volume now completed, my early and beloved friend, 
Theodore Parker, becomes almost a shadowy figure in the vast 
drama of national regeneration ; since he died, like Moses, 
within sight of the Promised Land that he was never to enter. 
But his work has been so well done, and was so heartily recog- 
nized by Herndon, in these enthusiastic and picturesque letters, 
that this shadow stands for something substantial, which the 
many volumes of Parker's discourses will certify and make good. 
He appears here as in some sort the inspirer of Herndon, and 
through him of Liricoln — the grandest personage of our long 
unfolding drama, and one of the most tragic. At the me- 
morial meeting for Lincoln in Concord, April 19, 1865, where 
Emerson gave his raatchess eulogy, it fell to me to express the 
general sentiment in verse, thus : 

The Power that sways the world with love, 
(Though War and Wrath His angels are). 

Throned thee, all earthly kings above. 
On threatened Freedom 's flaming car — 
To frighten tyrants, near and far. 

His purpose high thy course impelled 

O'er War's red height and smoldering plain; 

When awe, when pity thee withheld. 
He gave thy chafing speeds the rein, 
Till at thy feet lay Slavery slain. 

Then ceased thy task — another hand 

Takes up the burden thou lay'st down: 

Sorrowing and glad, the rescued land 
Twofold awards thy just renown — 
The victor's and the martyr's crown. 

There was an earlier martyr, without whose sacrifice in the 



van of the conflict, the strife would have been less sharp at 
first, but more prolonged and doubtful — the figure, yet more 
tragic, of John Brown. That singular association of resem- 
blance by contrast, calls up each of these two with the other; 
so like in their aims and their persistence, so different in their 
method and appeal. They stood for the Old and the New 
Testament — for severe justice and for mercy that tempers 
justice. Brown, like Lincoln, was originally and always for 
the Union. Both saw that negro slavery was the grand foe to 
a perfect Union, and for that reason they resisted and over- 
threw it. 

P. B. Sanborn 
Concord, Mass., Sept. 20, 1910 



7 know Lincoln better than he knows himself. I know this 
seems a little strong, hut I risk the assertion. Lincoln is a 
man of heart — aye, as gentle as a woman's and as tender — 
hut he has a will strong as iron. He therefore loves all man- 
kind, hates slavery and every form of despotism. Put these 
together — love for the slave, and a determination, a will, that 
justice, strong and unyielding , shall he done when he has the 
right to act and you can form your own conclusion. Lincoln 
will fail here, namely, if a question of political economy — if 
any question comes up which is doubtful, questionable, which 
no man can demonstrate, then his friends can rule him; but 
when on Justice, Bight, Liberty, the Government, the Consti- 
tution, and the Union, then you may all stand aside: he will 
rule then, and no man can move him — no set of ynen can do 
it. There is no failure here. This is Lincoln, and you mark 
my prediction. You and I must keep the people right; God 
will keep Lincoln right. — W. H. Herndon in Letter to 
Hon. Henry Wilson, December 21, 1860. 



CHAPTER I 

The Junior Partner 

" Lincoln & Herndon " — so read the old law shingle which 
hung in the bare stairway opposite the Court House Square, 
in Springfield. It had hung there for many years, inviting 
the passerby, when the senior member of the firm was sud- 
denly called from his dingy back office to a task the greatest 
ever committed to human hands, leaving Herndon to pur- 
sue the practice alone. The junior partner was not unwill- 
ing to have it so, being devoid of an itch for office, and hav- 
ing devoted years of tireless and self-effacing labor in behalf 
of his friend and chief, who was also the embodiment of the 
principles nearest to his own heart. They parted, and a great 
war rolled between them, but that did not sever the tie 
which time and sorrow and devotion to a mighty cause had 
woven. Though one was taken and the other left, the old 
shingle still hung in the stairway, at the request of Lincoln, 
until death dissolved the partnership. 

So far little has been written about Herndon, and some 
have spoken of him in a tone as supercilious as it is unjust. 
This is unfortunate, as though he were worthy of notice only 
by virtue of accident, whereas one can hardly know Lincoln 
without knowing his partner, his loyal friend, his indefat- 
igable fellow-worker. It was a notable partnership, more 
for its political than for its legal activity, but it will appear 
more notable when the service of the junior partner is 
known. Neither man was a learned lawyer, as that phrase 
is now used, but both were honest, able, and just, and each 
in his own key was truly and impressively eloquent when 
expounding or defending the fundamental rights of man. If 
we may not say that Herndon was a genius, he was at least 
"^ a man of exceptional ability, and it is believed that when the 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



spirit and details of his service to Lincoln are known, he will 
be held in lasting and grateful memory. 

Those who attempt, as historians, to recall the men of 
former times, must be just, and so far W. H. Hemdon has 
not had his due. The present study is no apotheosis of him, 
but a portrayal of the man as he was, in private habit and 
public capacity, with particular reference to his service to 
Lincoln as friend and adviser, and later as biographer. No 
effort is made to enter into the purely technical aspects of 
their professional career. That has been done by another. 
Besides many reminiscences, one entire volume has been de- 
voted to that special theme, and the details need not be re- 
peated.^ Our concern here is with the personal and political 
side of their partnership, their mutual confidence and in- 
spiration, their influence upon each other, and the manner 
in which they settled by anticipation, in a country law of- 
fice, the problem which later was to shake the minds of re- 
flecting men and rend the nation. To this end some account 
must be given of Mr. Herndon, his antecedents, his environ- 
ment, his personal history, and the qualities of his mind. 



Herndon genealogy, if we eared to follow it, would take 
us far back and is perhaps part legendary. Among the 
names inscribed on the roll of Battle Abbey, as having come 
with William the Conqueror, is that of Heriview, the an- 
cestor of the Herons, as they were afterwards called — one 
of whom is said to have followed Kjng Richard in his crusade. 
One branch of the family assumed the suffix ' ' don, ' ' and the 
name so written means " Bird of the Hills." The first of 
the family known, authentically, to have settled in this coun- 

1 Lincoln the Lawyer, by F. T. Hill (1906) — a book well conceived and 
admirable in many ways, but not free from error, nor exempt from grave 
injustice to Mr. Herndon. More than once the author is guilty of thinly 
disguised disrespect to Mr. Herndon, hardly crediting him with any 
ability as a lawyer at all. Nor is he justified in saying that Herndon was 
"unfortunately not the most reliable of chroniclers." This is to err, aa 
so many have done who did not know the man. 



THE JUNIOR PARTNER 



try was William Herndon, who patented lands in St. Steph- 
ens parish, New Kent County, Virginia, as early as 1654, 
and who three years later married Catherine Digges, a 
daughter of the Governor of the Colony. This Herndon is a 
very real figure, a man of substance and quality, and was the 
foresire of a large family to be found in various parts of the 
South. 

But we need go no further back than 1795, when Archer 
G. Herndon was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, and 
whose family moved to Green County, Kentucky, when he 
was about ten years of age. In 1816 this sturdy, keen- 
minded, rollicking youth married Rebecca Johnson, a young 
widow whose maiden name was Day, and their first child, 
v/ William Henry, was bom at Greensburg, Kentucky, Decem- 
ber 28, 1818 — three months after Nancy Hanks Lincoln died 
in a lonely log cabin in the wilderness of Indiana. Two years 
later Archer Herndon moved with his wife and babe to Troy, 
Madison County, Illinois, where one child was born to them. 
The following year, 1821, they came to Sangamon County, 
arriving in a cart drawn by one mule, and settled on what is 
now German Prairie, five miles northeast of Springfield. This 
was nine years before Thomas Lincoln left his cabin in Indi- 
ana and came to Illinois — the land of " full-grown men," 
as the word means. 

Archer Herndon and Thomas Lincoln were typical of the 
men who settled southern Illinois ; and it was the southern 
part of the State that shaped the early history and laws of 
the commonwealth. Even as late as 1836 Chicago was a vil- 
lage of less than half a thousand folk huddled about a fort, 
and the northern counties were sparsely populated. Illinois 
was a Free State, by ordinance of Congress — with the excep- 
tion of a few French families, who were allowed by special 
enactment to retain their slaves — and, strangely enough, it 
was for this very reason that its early settlers, though of 
Southern origin, chose it for a home. And so it remained, 
despite the effort made in 1822-3, to change it to a Slave 
State — Archer Herndon taking an active part on the side of 
slavery. The prevailing sentiment was of a peculiar color. 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



Many of the pioneers were poor and wished to find a coun- 
try where their labor would not be degraded by contact with 
slave labor/ while others hated the negro either in freedom 
or slavery, and were decidedly averse to living with him as 
their equal before the law; and they were almost unani- 
mously bitter in condemning any one suspected of favoring 
emancipation. Hence the drastic " Black Code," aimed at 
the free negro, which remained on the statute books until long 
after the Civil War.- 

Archer Herndon lived on German Prairie until 1825, when 
he removed to Springfield and engaged in mercantile pur- 
suits until 1836. During that time he erected the first reg- 
ular tavern in the town, and attained to prominence as a 
Democratic politician. He was a " character " in his day, 
intense by nature, positive in his likes and dislikes, akin to 
the roysterer in both manners and morals, albeit a man of 
many excellent qualities. In the meantime his oldest son, 
"William Henry, was growing up — a robust, sinewy lad, with 
large angular features, deep-set dark eyes, crowned with a 
shock of blue-black hair — and he was inclined, at times, to 
imitate his father in certain habits in which a father least 
cares to have his son follow him. Indeed, father and son 
were so much alike that their relations were often difficult, 
and would have been impossible but for the sweet diplomacy 
of a good and wise mother. 

Young Herndon first saw Lincoln in 1832, when the 
steamer Talisman was puffing and wheezing about in the 
Sangamon, in her effort to force the passage and prove that 
the river was navigable. Rowan Herndon of New Salem — a 
cousin of William — who was chosen to pilot the steamer from 
near Springfield to the Illinois River, selected Lincoln as his 
assistant; and together they ran the Talisman, which Lincoln 
afterwards described as having '' a five-foot boiler and a 
seven-foot whistle, so that every time the whistle blew the 



1 See letter from W. H. Herndon to Theodore Parker, Feb. 16, 1856, 
in a subsequent chapter. 

2 History of Illinois, by Governor Ford, pp. 30-50 (1854); Negro 
Servitude in Illinois, by N. D. Harris, Chap. I-IV (1904). 



THE JUNIOR PARTNER 



boat stopped." When the steamer left New Salem, William 
Herndon and other boys followed it, riding on horseback 
along the bank — a leisurely enough journey, for the gallant 
craft averaged only four miles a day. At Bogue's Mill the 
boat tied up, and the boys went aboard a^d explored the 
splendors of her interior decorations. There Herndon met 
his future partner, and the incident lost none of its comedy 
when in after years the two men were wont to talk over old 
times. They did not become well acquainted, however, until 
Lincoln made his second race for the Assembly two years 
later. 

Lincoln returned to New Salem and lived with Rowan 
Herndon, buying from Herndon his half interest in the store 
which he owned with Berry. Failing in this enterprise, he 
became by turns a postmaster who carried his office in his hat, 
and a surveyor whose outfit was sold for debt ; reading Black- 
stone at odd hours, but most of all the newspapers ; also Gib- 
bon, Volney, and Paine, under whose tutelage he became a 
rude denier of the rude theology of his day. Young Herndon 
frequently met him iu those days, while visiting his cousin, 
and at the Rutledge Tavern where Lincoln lived after Rowan 
Herndon moved to the country. ^^How far the early rational- 
ism of Lincoln influenced the later views of Herndon, is not 
known; but something in the gentle, studious giant attracted 
the lad, and in the summer of 1834 the boy more than once 
accompanied him in his canvass for the Assembly, listening 
to his stories. The Herndon and Rutledge families were 
friends, and in a village where there were few secrets every- 
one followed the courtship of Lincoln and Ann Rutledge like 
a story-book, until it ended with the return of IMcNamar, who 
found his sweetheart dead and Lincoln broken-hearted. Hern- 
don knew Ann Rutledge, and her death, which divided the 
life of Lincoln into before and after, touched him deeply, as 
may be seen in a lecture delivered by him in 1866, in Avliich 
he first told the story. 

During his first term in the Assembly Lincoln said little, 
and learned much. He was a candidate for re-election in 
1836, Archer G. Herndon running for State Senator on the 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



Democratic ticket in the same campaign. Both men were 
elected and became members of the famous ' ' Long Nine, ' ' by 
whose strategy the capital was moved from Vandalia to 
Springfield — which event Herndon celebrated, in his best 
manner, by opening a barrel of rum. Meanwhile, William 
Herndon was studying in the schools of Springfield, and serv- 
ing at odd times as clerk in Joshua Speed's store. One of his 
teachers was John C. Calhoun, a gifted and lovable man under 
whom Lincoln had served as assistant surveyor, and who af- 
terwards became famous, or infamous, in connection with the 
fraudulent Lecompton constitution in Kansas.^ In the au- 
tumn of that year, 1836, Herndon entered the preparatory 
department of the Illinois College, at Jacksonville — five 
months before Lincoln rode into Springfield on a borrowed 
horse, with a pair of saddle-bags containing two or three law 
books and a few pieces of clothing, to make the new capital 
his home and Joshua Speed's store his headquarters. 

Lincoln had served with Major John T. Stuart in the 
Black Hawk War — sworn into the service, it is said, by Jef- 
ferson Davis- — and Stuart now offered him a partnership at 
law, having loaned him books the while and induced him to 
move to Springfield. This offer was gladly accepted, and 
while Lincoln was only beginning the practice he did much 
of the work of the office, Stuart being deeply immersed in pol- 
itics. At least nearly all the papers of the firm were written 
by him, though he had little love for such labor, and less or- 

1 When that document was transmitted by President Buchanan to 
Congress, on Feb. 2, 1858, it bore a note, " Beceived from J. C. CalJioun, 
Esq., duly certified by Mm, ' ' recommending that Kansas be made a Slave 
State under it. A committee from the Legisature getting a hint of the 
fraudulent election returns, found them secreted in a candle-box under a 
wood-pile near Calhoun 's office ; so he was known as John Candlebox Cal- 
houn. Better for him and for his country had he remained a surveyor 
and a school-teacher in Illinois; but Herndon, who loved him, left this 
story out of the record. 

2 ' ' Then a tall, gawky, slab-sided, homely young man, dressed in a suit 
of blue jeans, presented himself as captain of a company of recruits, and 
was sworn in by Jefferson Davis. ' ' — Life of Jefferson Davis, by his wife, 
Vol. I, p. 132 (1890). 



THE JUNIOR PARTNER 



der in doing it. They mixed law with politics, both partners 
serving in the Assembly, and in the autumn of 1837 Stuart, 
after an exciting contest, defeated Douglas for Congress. 
This left Lincoln with all the work to do, besides the duty of 
helping his partner politically — a kind of industry congenial 
to him, which was no doubt one reason why Stuart chose him 
as managing clerk. He knew how to play the game of politics 
according to the rules thereof, and was not over-nice as to 
methods when no moral principle was involved,^ On one is- 
sue, however, he had courageous convictions, nor did he at 
any time permit his Machiavellian shrewdness to over-reach 
them. 

Slavery had become a question about which men in Illinois 
picked their words with care. So intense was the feeling that 
in March, 1837 — one month before Lincoln entered the office 
of Stuart — the Assembly passed a resolution expressing dis- 
approval of the formation of Abolition societies and of the 
doctrines advocated by them. Many men who hated slavery 
sympathized in part with this action, on the ground that such 
agitation tended more to irritate men than to convince them, 
thus making the situation doubly difficult. An orator who 
expended his fiery eloquence in denouncing the evil, without 
suggesting any practical way of dealing with it, was felt to 
be " as one who beat the air. ' ' Still the resolution of the As- 
sembly, passed with great enthusiasm, glibly ignored the 
moral principle involved, and it required some courage for 
Lincoln to file protest against it. But he did so in words so 
well-chosen and far-sighted that he had no need to alter them 
for thirty years. He held that slavery " is founded on both 
injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of aboli- 

1 Governor Ford, writing of this period, and having in mind the wild 
schemes of internal improvement, could see nothing in Lincoln and Doug- 
las but "dexterous jugglers and managers in politics, spared monuments 
of popular wrath, evincing how safe it is to be a politician, but how dis- 
astrous it may be to the community, to keep along with the fervor of the 
people, right or wTong. " — Uistory of Illinois, pp. 181-198 (1854). It 
should be added, in mitigation, that this indictment included all the 
"Long Nine," as well as others, naming the list; and in face of the 
record this arraigimient does not seem unjust. 



^1^^ 



8 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

tion doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate the evils. ' ' 
On that basis he stood firm, and neither the allurements of 
good-fellowship nor the blandishments of office could move 
him. 

Shortly afterwards Elijah Lovejoy, editor of the St. Louis 
Observer, a religious weekly, was driven from that city by a 
mob for expressing anti-slavery sentiments in his paper. Un- 
wisely, as many thought, he established his paper at Alton, 
Illinois, only twenty miles distant by steamer, with the result 
that a mob attacked his press and he was shot while defending 
it. Not satisfied with this brutal crime, the mob threatened 
to attack Illinois College at Jacksonville, because its president, 
Edward Beecher, had stood guard with Lovejoy the night he- 
re the tragedy.^ Excitement was at fever heat, and indig- 
nation meetings were held throughout the State. At a gath- 
ering of students, notable for its intensity of feeling, William 
Herndon, in a speech long remembered by his fellow students, 
denounced not only the enslavement of men, but the attempt 
to gag the press by mob rule. 

^ The elder Herndon, who was intensely pro-slavery in his 
views, fearing that his son had become infected with the 
poison of abolitionism, withdrew the lad from college, re- 
marking that he would have no part in the education of " a 

d Abolitionist pup ! " It was as he had suspected. The 

lad came home an enthusiastic and radical Abolitionist, bold 
and outspoken, as was his way always, and the passion for 
liberty and justice exploded in him wliat faith he had in the re- 
ligion of the church — as it exploded the faith of so many men 
of his ardent and vivid type in those days. At any rate, he 
was thereafter a rationalist, or perhaps one should say natu- 



1 See the Autobiography of Julian M. Sturtevant, edited by his son, 
Chap. XV (1896). Also, Illinois College and the Anti-Slavery Movement 
in Illinois, by C. H. Reramelkamp, a paper before the Illinois Historical 
Society (1909). Dr. Sturtevant was a professor in the Illinois College at 
the time of Lovejoy 's death, and was his personal friend. Lovejoy may 
have been rash and unwise, as men count wisdom, but he had a soul of 
fire, and his name is written among the martyrs of liberty. See Memoir 
of Lovejoy, by Joseph and Owen Lovejoy, introduction by .lohn Quincy 
(1838). 



THE JUNIOR PARTNER 



ralist. There was a break between father and son, and the 
boy left liome, though he remained religiously loyal to his 
mother, visiting her almost every day. He was again em- 
ployed by Joshua Speed as a clerk in his store, probably at 
the suggestion of Lincoln, to whom he confided his new re- 
ligious and political faith. Writing of the time immediately 
following, Mr. Herndon says : ^ 

On my return to Springfield from college, I hired to Joshua 
F. Speed as clerk in his store. My salary, seven hundred 
dollars per annum, was considered good pay. Speed, Lin- 
coln, Charles R. Hurst, and I slept in the room upstairs 
over the store. I had worked for Speed before going to 
college, and after hiring to him this time again, continued 
in his employ for several years. The young men who con- 
gregated about the store formed a society for the encour- 
agement of debate and other literary efforts. Sometimes 
we would meet in a lawyer's office and often in Speed's 
room. Besides the debates, poems and other original pro- 
ductions were read. Unfortunately we ruled out the la- 
dies. ... I have forgotten the name of the society — 
if it had any — and can only recall a few of its leading 
spirits. Lincoln, James Matheney, Noah Rickard, Evan 
Butler, IMilton Hay, and Newton Francis were members. 
I joined also. Matheney was secretary. We were favored 
with all sorts of literary productions. Lincoln one night 
entertained us with a few lines in rhyme intended to illus- 
trate some weakness in woman — her frailty, perhaps. Un- 
fortunately, the manuscript has not been preserved. . . . 
Besides this organization we had a society in Spring- 
field, which contained and commanded all the culture and 
talent of the place. LTnlike the other one, its meetings were 
public, and reflected great credit on the community. We 
called it the " Young Men's Lyceum." Late in 1837, Lin 
coin delivered before the society a carefully prepared ad- 
dress on " The Perpetuation of Our Free Institutions." 
The inspiration and burthen of it was law and order. (Tt 
was brought out by the l)urning of a negro by a mob at St. 
Louis a few weeks before.) IMatheney was appointed by 
the Lyceum to request of Lincoln a copy of his address 
and to see to its publication. . . . Tt was published in 



1 Abraham Lincoln, by W. H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik. All refer- 
ences are to the second edition (1802), the first being now practically in- 
accessible. 



10 LINCOLN AND HERND ON 

the Sangamon Journal, and created for the young orator a 
reputation which soon extended beyond the limits of the 
locality in which he lived. 

Herndon had always the instinct of a student, though he 
was lacking in polish, as were most of the loungers who gath- 
ered about the inviting fireplace in Speed's store. One even- 
ing the talk turned on politics, and the disputants waxed 
warm as the discussion proceeded — Herndon sitting on a 
keg listening. Douglas led the Democrats, charging the 
Whigs with every sort of political crime. At last, excited 
and vehement, he sprang to his feet and challenged his op- 
ponents to debate the question in public, adding that the 
store was no place to talk politics. His challenge was ac- 
cepted, and the contest was arranged to take place in the 
old Presbyterian church — Douglas, J. C. Calhoun, Josiah 
Lamborn, and Jesse Thomas to represent the Democrats; 
Stephen T. Logan, E. H. Baker, 0. H. Browning, and Lin- 
coln, in the order named, to represent the Whigs. One even- 
ing was given to each man, and it required more than a week 
to complete the tournament. Later, Lincoln and Calhoun de- 
bated the tariff question after the same manner, in the court 
house. Such debates were frequent, serving the double pur- 
pose of keeping party spirit alive and of gi\ang young men 
a chance to be seen and heard. 

Others who foregathered at Speed's store, to read poems 
and talk politics, won fame in after years. In company with 
these aspiring politicians Herndon began to learn, at close 
range, the workings of practical politics. He could not have 
had better teachers, for they were masters of all the various 
methods of that devious art; Lincoln quite the equal of any 
of them in pulling a wire or turning a trick. Herndon be- 
came in time, as this record will show, one of the most useful 
Abolitionists in the West — if not in the whole country — and 
it was due in large part to his training under these adroit 
leaders ; his familiarity with the methods of practical politics 
making him more astute and wary, but not less intense or 
uncompromising, than his fellow radicals in the East. Lin- 
coln was re-elected to the Assembly in 1838, after a canvass 



THE JUNIOR PARTNER 11 

which took him into almost every home in the county. The 
next year Major Stuart was re-elected to Congress, leaving 
his partner to attend to the practice of the firm, which by this 
time included the beginnings of "circuit riding" — follow- 
ing the judges from one log court house to another, always 
over bad roads and often across swollen streams; a kind of 
life Lincoln enjoyed, despite its inconveniences, for its rov- 
ing, careless freedom, and its rollicking comradeship. So his 
days ran, full equally of law and politics, until April, 1841, 
when the firm of " Stuart & Lincoln " was dissolved.^ 

Herndon was nominally a Whig until 1853, and the " log 
cabin and hard cider campaign " of 1840 was the first in 
which he took an active part — his part including, besides a 
number of enthusiastic speeches, some industrious election- 
eering. Lincoln was on the Whig ticket that year, as candi- 
date for Presidential Elector at large, and spoke at various ral- 
lies where a log cabin, with a gourd for a cider mug hanging 
on one side of the door, and a coon-skin nailed to the logs on 
the other, was the picturesque emblem of his party. While 
his friend was thus rising in politics, Herndon had fallen in 
love and married Mary J. Maxey — a Kentucky girl, born near 
Bowling Green in 1822, whose father, James Maxey, had come 
to Springfield in 1834. She was a woman to win the love of 
any man, as gentle and serene as her husband was impulsive 
and impetuous. 

II 

Thus far we have had to do with Lincoln chiefly as he touched 
Herndon, showing how their lives were braided together. He 

1 In his Autobiography Joseph Jefferson tells how Lincoln represented 
his father in a plea before the City Council against an exorbitant and 
prohibitory license imposed upon his theatre in 1839, as the result of a 
religious revival. The passage is picturesque but hardly correct, for 
Lincoln was at that time a member of the Board of Trustees of the town 
of Springfield, and must have acted in that capacity. The speech at- 
tributed to him was probably embellished by Jefferson's imagination, 
though it was the destiny of Lincoln to be fond of the drama with few op- 
portunities to enjoy it. See Abraham Lincoln, by I. N. Phillips (1910). 



12 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

was now thirty-one years of age, and behind him lay that 
strange, lonely, heroic, pathetic story which so many have 
tried to tell, but which still awaits the touch of a master 
hand. Indeed, Lincoln must puzzle any artist, for that he 
was so unlike any model — peculiar, particular, and unique, 
compounded of so many elements which in smaller natures 
are contradictory,^ and yet withal so simple, natural, and 
human. The present study does not include his life in de- 
tail, even if this were the pen to record it; but as he enters 
a new career those early years return in the vividness of 
their monotony, their loneliness, privation, and toil ; full of 
the patience that could walk down a long road without turn- 
ing, brightened by dutifulness alone, pointed but not cheered 
by wayside anecdote; until at last, by integrity, fortitude, 
and resolute will, he was successful ; not so much because he 
was sanguine of himself, as because he rated no eminence or 
honor too high or too difficult to attain. His later fame, so 
unlike his early life, made men stare, because they had not 
seen the steps he took upon the way. 

So we meet him in 1840, making his way slowly, unhappy, 
ambitious, and alone. He was inured to hardship and pov- 
erty; rarely ill, being a man of regular habits, wiry and stal- 
wart beyond the best of western men ; ha\'ing a certain in- 
nate dignity and charm of nature, despite his ungainly figure 
and ill-fitting garb ; and what he was he had made himself. 
He had few illusions about himself or the world, and did not 
expect great destiny to come to him unsolicited, as a lottery 
prize. He knew there must be work, patience, wisdom, plan- 
ning, disappointment; and, while he was not lazy, he always 
loafed a little, studying men more than books, and reading 
the issues as they developed. Never petulant but sometimes 
moody, he was fond of solitude and self-communion, and 
would often sit for hours looking absently at the ceiling, 
dead to the world and buried in thought. At such times he 
seemed to be a dreamer thinking. At other times, noted and 
remembered by his friends, a cloud would fall over his face, 
and he was the most hopeless and forlorn of mortals, as 

1 Life of Lincoln, by J. G. Holland, pp. 240-242 (1886). 



THE JUNIOR PARTNER 13 

though tortured by some hidden sorrow, or brooding over 
some immemorial wrong that never in time or eternity could 
be set right. When the shadow lifted he was himself again, be- 
guiling the hours with the aptness and ingenuities of his anec- 
dotes — some of them more cogent than delicate, though he 
tolerated smuttiness only when it was disinfected by wit. 
His friends were selected with regard to sincerity chiefly; 
he loved not cliques, and those who knew him best were 
younger men. He was strangely reserved in friendship, 
rarely surrendering entire confidence, seldom a hero-worship- 
er; and for Douglas, his rival in love and politics, he had 
less admiration than revulsion. All the while he seemed to 
know everybody, and yet only Speed and Herndon ever felt 
that they knew him. 

Lincoln was hard to know, particularly while he was in 
the process of making. He was, moreover, so deeply rooted 
in the soil of his time and place, yet towered so far above it, 
that the union in him of crudities and refinements was baffling. 
An example in point, at this period, may be seen in his re- 
lations with women, which have been much dwelt upon by 
his biographers; too much so, perhaps, yet one hesitates to 
erase a line. A master of men and at ease with them, he had 
no skill with women, and was never at his best in their pres- 
ence, being not only deficient, as one of them said, in the 
knack of small attentions, but quite helpless amid the subtle- 
ties of the feminine nature. At the grave of Ann Rutledge 
he vowed, it is said, never to marry ; yet within a few months 
he was strangely entangled again, learning from Mary Owens 
the comedy of love as before he had learned its tragedy. 
Judging from his letters to her, he had not yet put a foot 
into the upper circle of society, caring less than nothing, ap- 
parently, for that side of life. 

No sooner had he entered that circle, in which he was 
never at home, than he met Mary Todd, a Kentucky girl of 
distinguished lineage, highly cultured, compact of brilliance, 
coquetry, and wit. Lincoln had not met such a woman be- 
fore, and he was captivated by her cleverness, vivacity, and 
beauty. A courtship followed, and the friends of both were 



14 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

astounded when the high-spirited belle announced her be- 
trothal to the tall, loosely-knit lawyer. Relatives felt that 
they were not suited, and expressed forebodings. There were 
jars and misunderstandings. Douglas, fated to be a rival at 
every turn, was also a suitor for the hand of Mary Todd. 
Gossip said that Lincoln was devoted to Matilda Edwards, 
and that he told Mary so. Many thoughts must have crossed 
his mind as to the different roads they had traveled to their 
meeting, and he doubted his ability to make such a woman 
happy. Torn betwixt love and morbid misgivings, he took 
counsel of Joshua Speed, by whose advice he sought release, 
only to find himself more closely bound. The wedding day 
came but the marriage was not solemnized. Of so much we 
are sure ; and the report is that Lincoln, who did not appear, 
was found by his friends wandering in utter despair, actu- 
ally, it is said, contemplating suicide.^ 

Still, he was at his desk the next day in the Assembly, 
then in special session, though he did not appear often until 
later in the month. On the 19th J. J. Hardin announced his 
illness in the House, but he returned in time to take part in 
fighting a scheme to " reform " the judiciary, whereby the 
artful Douglas hoped to secure a seat on the Supreme Bench. 
Toward the close of the session some one twitted him on his 
experience with women, and he replied in his best vein of 
humor. But it was all on the outside. Inwardly he was tor- 
tured not only by the fact that he had wronged another, but 
by the feeling that he had lost his own self-respect. Which 
humiliation was the deeper, he knew not. Major Stuart was 
away in Congress, and what business the firm had fell on 
him, but neither work nor politics brought him relief. Near 
the end of the month he wrote to his partner, in a mood of 
dismal melancholy: 

For not giving you a general summary of news, you must 
1 Herndon 's account of this incident is undeniably vivid, and some 
think it highly embellished (Vol. 1, pp. 191-207). This and kindred ques- 
tions will be considered in the review of the Herndon biography in a sub- 
sequent chapter. At any rate, the "fatal 1st of .January," 1841, stands 
out in the life of Lincoln. 



THE JUNIOB PARTNER 15 

pardon me ; it is not in my power to do so. I am now the 
most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally 
distributed to the whole human family, there would not 
be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be 
better, I cannot tell ; I awfully forebode I shall not. To re- 
main as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it ap- 
pears to me. ... I say this because I fear I shall not be 
able to attend to any business here, and a change of scene 
might help me. If I could be myself, I would rather remain 
at home with Judge Logan. I can write no more. 

But there was more to the matter, if we may judge from 
his letters to Speed, which Herndon secured with difficulty 
and not without some omissions. Those letters, unique in 
their intimate disclosures, had to do with matters about 
which men seldom speak, much less write. The two friends 
seem to have talked about marriage until they had become 
fearful of it, as though it were a perilous leap into an abyss. 
Speed was passing through a similar ordeal of misgiving with 
regard to it, and Lincoln lectured him about his doubts and 
forebodings, probably at the same time arguing against his 
own. He warned his friend against too much solitude and 
self-torture; against mistaking the depressing influence of 
the weather for a suggestion of the devil; against an " in- 
tensity of thought which will sometimes wear the sweetest 
idea threadbare, and turn it into the bitterness of death." 
Such a state of mind he attributed to nervous debility in 
Speed, and hinted as much in his own case. Writing to Mary 
Speed, he tells of seeing a band of slaves, chained together, 
going South, the most cheerful and happy folk on board the 
boat. This leads him to reflect on the effect of condition upon 
human happiness, and he adds : ' ' How true it is that ' God 
tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' or in other words, that 
he renders the worst human condition tolerable, while he per- 
mits the best to be nothing better than tolerable." Thus he 
lived in a dun-colored world, sensitive to its plaintive, minor 
note, under a sky as gray as a tired face. 

In April following '^the fatal 1st of January" — for so 
Lincoln always referred to his wedding day — the firm of 



16 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

" Stuart & Lincoln " was dissolved, and the junior member 
was offered a partnership with Stephen T. Logan, a former 
Judge of the Circuit Court. This offer was accepted, and the 
training which Lincoln received in the office of that precise, 
methodical jurist was one of the best parts of his education. 
Judge Logan was a little, weasened man, with a high, shrill 
voice, a keen, shrewd face, and a shock of yellow white hair 
— picturesque in his old cape, and admittedly the best trial 
lawyer in the State. He was devoted equally to the philos- 
ophy and the art of the law, re-reading Blackstone every 
year, and was such an adept at splitting hairs that a jury of 
farmers could see the divisions. The two men had little in 
common, beyond the fact that both were good Whigs and 
exceedingly anxious for political honors. Logan loved money, 
and kept most of the earnings; but this did not trouble Lin- 
coln, who loved fame more than money, and regarded wealth 
as " simply a superfluity of things we don't need." That 
summer he visited Speed, who had sold his interests and 
moved back to Kentucky, and was much helped by the change 
of scene. Returning, he bent to his work, in his easy-going, 
unsystematic way, keeping an eye on the eddies of politics, 
and playing hide and seek with his shadowy melancholy. 

The next winter, 1842, he took part in the "Washingtonian 
temperance crusade, making several speeches, one of which 
has come down to us. Comparing it with his former efforts, 
one discovers a marked advance in restraint of style, which 
became every year less decorative and more forthright, simple, 
and thrusting; and the style was the man.^ Rarely has that dif- 
ficult theme been treated in so calm, earnest, and judicious a 
manner, with surer insight or a finer spirit. He was al- 
ready dreaming, it would seem, of a time when there should 
be neither a slave nor a drunkard in the republic. But his 
address, so far from finding favor, excited hostility, for, speak- 
ing out of his wide knowledge of men, and the wise pity which 

1 See an admirable thesis of Prof. D. K. Dodge, of the University of 
Illinois, entitled, Abraham Lincoln: The Evolution of His Literary Style 
(1900). Also, a paper before the Eoyal Historical Society, London, liy 
I. N. Arnold, entitled Abraham Lincoln (1881). 



THE JUNIOR PARTNER 17 

such knowledge begets, he was led to say, frankly, that those 
who had never fallen into the toils of the vice had escaped 
more by lack of appetite than by any moral superiority, and 
that taken as a class, drinking men would compare favorably 
in head and heart with any other class. This was as a red 
rag to the more intemperate of the temperance reformers, to 
whom drinking was a crime — a temper of mind to which 
Lincoln, as abstemious in habit as in speech, was averse. In- 
deed, his pre-eminent sanity in the midst of extremists was 
one of the chief attractions of his life. 

By this time Speed had made the awful leap into matri- 
mony, and Lincoln was anxious to know his fate. His letter 
of inquiry, which between any other two men would have been 
grossly intrusive, elicited a reply so startlingly favorable that 
he could hardly credit it. He himself was thinking of mar- 
riage again, friends having brought the former fiances to- 
gether during the summer, to an accompaniment of a comic 
duel. Lincoln had ridiculed James Shields, a Democratic 
politician, in an anonymous letter in the Sangamon Journal. 
Mary Todd and her friend Julia Jayne — afterwards the wife 
of Lyman Trumbull — added to the fun by writing other 
similar letters over the same signature, followed by some 
verses. Shields was furious, and Lincoln, to protect the 
women, took the blame of it upon himself. The result was a 
challenge to fight a duel, in which no blood but much ink was 
spilled — a performance of which Lincoln had the good sense 
to be ashamed. He disliked, in later years, any mention of 
it. On November 4, 1842, he was safely married, tormented 
by his old morbid misgivings to the very last. He lived at 
the Globe Tavern, kept by a widow of the name of Beck, 
paying four dollars a week for board. 

Hitherto he had owned a horse, and was fond of riding; 
but he made a poor income, as he confided to Speed, and was 
now and then pinched to distress, and went to bed with no 
notion of how he should meet the claims of the morrow. For 
nearly one-fifth part of his life he owed money he could not 
pay, and while of easy disposition, debt galled him and has- 
tened his wrinkles. His marriage, though not without its 



18 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

jars — as might have been expected between two persons so 
unlike in temper, training, and habits of life — was in every 
way advantageous to him. It whetted his industry, did not 
nurse too much the penchant for home indolence that he had, 
and taught him, particularly, that there was such a thing as 
society, which observed a man's boots as well as his princi- 
ples. He was always a loyal and reverent husband, a gentle 
but not positive father, and the towering ambition of his 
wife out-topped his own. It was at the old Globe Tavern 
that his first son, Robert, was born. Some months later he 
purchased a house on Eighth Street, formerly owned by a 
minister, where he made him a home. A narrow yard and 
palings shut it from the street; the door was in the middle, 
and was approached by four or five wooden steps; and on 
the abutment beside these he stood after his nomination in 
1860, in a blaze of torches, the thunder of huzzas breaking 
around him, the only solemn man in Springfield. 

Ill 

Returning to Herndon, we find him studying law in the of- 
fice of " Logan & Lincoln," at the invitation of the junior 
partner. He was an excellent student and became an able 
attorney, but he seems never to have liked the law. Herndon 
was a strange mixture of extremes, complex where Lincoln 
was simple ; a man of no personal dignity, yet gifted and lov- 
able ; one moment talking in a lofty strain, and the next tell- 
ing yarns that smelled of the barnyard ; given to escapades of 
sentiment, yet withal sagacious and astute; impetuous and 
impulsive, but honest, sincere, and loyal. By nature an en- 
thusiast, a colorist, and a radical, he embraced at one leap all 
the social reforms, from the abolition of slavery to the right 
of woman suffrage. That was temperament. All through his 
career, after it had a beginning, he had a hard fight with the 
drink habit, with many victories and occasional bitter defeats ; 
a battle which Lincoln watched with never-failing pity. That 
was environment, very tragical in his case, and characteristic 
of the period. But Lincoln knew Herndon, his abilities and 



THE JUNIOR PARTNER 19 

his failings, his qualities of mind and heart, and the two men 
loved each other like brothers of unequal age. 

Lincoln was doubtless looking ahead when he induced his 
young friend to take up the study of law. His money ar- 
rangement with Judge Logan was unsatisfactory, especially 
after his marriage, and he wished to set up for himself or as 
the head of a firm. Both men were ambitious to go to Con- 
gress, and there had been friction. Finally an understanding, 
more tacit than formal, was reached to the effect that Hardin, 
Baker, Lincoln, and Logan should each have a turn at the 
coveted honor. So, at least, we may infer from the letters of 
Lincoln ; but such an agreement, if there was one, did not pre- 
clude a friendly rivalry. Lincoln tried to get the nomination 
in 1842, but was beaten — because of his temperance address, 
because his wife, as an Episcopalian, a Todd, and akin to the 
Edwardses, was an " aristocrat, " because he had once " talked 
of fighting a duel," and because he was held to be a deist, if 
not a sceptic, in religion. There were, besides, " political 
complications." He was sent as a delegate in behalf of 
Baker, which was, as he wrote to Speed, " a good deal like a 
fellow who is made groomsman to a man that has cut him out 
and is marrying his own dear gal." But Hardin won the 
nomination, and Lincoln once more stood aside, reluctantly, 
in 1844, in favor of Baker. At any rate, the reasons for the 
break between Logan and Lincoln were more financial than 
political. Two such strong natures could not work together, 
and in 1843 their partnership was dissolved. 

On the same day, September 20th, the firm of " Lincoln 
& Herndon " was founded, Lincoln generously dividing the 
earnings equally with his junior partner. Looking back 
through the years at a partnership which was as much a per- 
sonal friendship as a business arrangement, Mr. Herndon 
wrote : 

I confess I was surprised when he invited me to become 
his partner. I was young in the practice and was pain- 
fully aware of my want of ability and experience ; but 
when he remarked in his earnest, honest way, " Billy, I 
can trust you, if you can trust me," I felt relieved and 



20 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

accepted his generous proposal. It has always been a mat- 
ter of pride with me that during our long partnership, con- 
tinuing on until it was dissolved by the bullet of the assas- 
sin Booth, we never had any personal controversy or dis- 
agreement. I never stood in his way for political honors 
or office, and I believe we understood each other perfectly. 
In after years, when he became more prominent, and our 
practice grew to respectable proportions, other ambitious 
practitioners undertook to supplant me in the partnership. 
One of the latter, more zealous than wise, charged that I 
was in a certain way weakening the influence of the firm. 
I am flattered to know that Lincoln turned on this last 
named individual with the retort, " I know my own busi- 
ness, I reckon. I know Billy Herndon better than any- 
body, and even if what you say of him is true I intend to 
stick by him. ' ' ^ 



Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and "Weik, Vol. I, p. 252. 



CHAPTER II 

Lincoln & Herndon 

No two men were ever more unlike in temper of mind and 
habits of thought — which was, no doubt, a secret of their 
long friendship. Lincoln was a conservative, Herndon a 
radical, but each respected the views of the other, and time 
taught them that wisdom lay in the middle path. They had, 
indeed, much in common besides a fraternity of sentiment, 
a droll humor, and a disregard of details; even resembling 
each other in ruggedness of frame and angularity of features 
— both faces wearing the same half -tender melancholy, the 
result, perhaps, of a lonely pioneer life, a habit of thoughtful 
abstraction, and a disposition to share the sorrows of man- 
kind. 

Some men feel the mystery of the public infirmity like a 
heavy weight of personal care, and both Lincoln and Herndon 
were of that quality. Of such stuff reformers are made, but 
the young man of fiery soul and fluent speech needed the 
calm and wise restraint of the older and greater man, else 
he had been a fanatic. And it must be said that Lincoln, 
though he had within him a slumbering fire, almost volcanic 
when deeply stirred, had need of such a flaming spirit to 
keep his faith aglow. He sat, as Herndon said, looking 
through a brief to the iniquity of slavery, and the moral or- 
der of God ; but his attitude, if not hopeless, was unhopeful. 
Already the junior partner was consorting with Abolitionists, 
reading all the agitators, and advocating the most radical 
ideas ; his senior gravely listening, but unconvinced. To Lin- 
coln the national abomination seemed impregnable, and he 
had no hope of living to see its entrenchments crumble. Thus, 
out of their mutual indignations, hopes, and fears they edu- 
cated themselves, each in his own way — one to a grand ab- 
horrence, the other to a grand agency. 



22 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



As lawyers they were advocates rather than jurists — "case 
lawyers, ' ' in the phrase of the craft — Herndon being little 
more than an office-clerk, as he tells us frankly, during the 
first years of their partnership. Lincoln once said that he 
selected Herndon as his partner thinking him to be a good 
business man who would keep his office affairs in order, but 
soon found that he had no more system than he himself, and 
was in reality a very good lawyer, " thus proving a double 
disappointment." No one, least of all Herndon, could re- 
duce Lincoln to any sort of order. But he never forgot to 
divide his fees with his young partner, paying him his share 
at once, or leaving it in an envelope marked, " Herndon 's 
half." They kept no books. The firm had a busy though 
not a lucrative practice from the start, appealing thirty-three 
cases to the Supreme Court the first year — a good record 
for even those litigious days. But what was better, the two 
men worked together as comrades, lightening the drudgery 
of the office, which both despised, with conversation grave and 

gay. 

Just what position Lincoln held at the bar in these early 
years is not easy to know. After forming his partnership with 
Herndon — whose family was large and influential — he ex- 
tended his practice somewhat, but he did not travel the large 
circuit, which embraced fifteen counties, until later. Wliether 
on the circuit or at Springfield, where the federal courts were 
held, he was pitted against men of unusual ability and power, 
among whom were Stephen A. Douglas, 0. H. Browning, Nin- 
ian Edwards, E. H. Baker, Judge Logan, and others. Some 
of these men were abler lawyers than he, especially in cases 
where the issues hung upon technical refinements and pure 
points of law — Judge Logan, in this particular, being the 
ablest man at the bar. This is not to say that Lincoln prac- 
ticed by his wits, though with all his simplicity and honesty 
a shrewder mortal has seldom lived. Indeed, he would have 
been a dangerous man, but for his deep-seated integrity which 
was ever his ruling trait. He was at his best before a jury. 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 23 

where his knowledge of human nature, his keen logic, and his 
gifts of humor and mimicry came into full play, and where 
his occasional bursts of appeal swept all before him. But 
the law is a jealous mistress and coy of her favors, nor does 
she crown those who serve her with divided allegiance. 

So far Lincoln was more absorbed in politics than in law. 
What led him forward, said Herndon, was ambition, ' ' a little 
engine that knew no rest," which strove not for riches but 
for political honors. If the fire burned low, his wife, who 
saw greater things for him than he dared dream, added fuel. 
In 1844 he was on the Whig electoral ticket, and not only 
stumped Illinois for Henry Clay, but was invited to Indiana 
and had the satisfaction of speaking at Gentryville, where he 
had lived as a boy. Amid such scenes, touched by the changes 
wrought by time and death, he fell into a mood of melancholy, 
and expressed his emotions in verse, which, if not poetical in 
form, was, as he said, poetical in feeling. The defeat of Clay, 
his political idol, was a hard blow, all the more so after so 
many portents of victory; but his grief was cooled somewhat 
by a visit to his hero, who received him with a stately aristo- 
cratic courtesy, gracious indeed, but not unmixed, so Lincoln 
felt, with a certain condescension of manner. 

At last, in 1846, he was nominated for Congress, and there 
followed a contest as remarkable for religious bigotry as for 
partisan rancor. His opponent on the Democratic ticket was 
Peter Cartwright, a famous evangelist who rode the Method- 
ist circuit in the pioneer era — a picturesque personality and 
a native orator of many popular gifts. Not content to assail 
Lincoln for his temperance address, the fervid exhorter 
charged him with infidelity — an accusation more serious 
then than now — going back for proof to the New Salem days, 
when Lincoln was said to have written a pamphlet attacking 
the Christian religion after the manner of Thomas Paine.^ 

1 Such an essay was written by Lincoln in his early days, while under 
the spell of Volney, Paine, and other thinkers of that school, in which he 
argued that the Bible was not inspired and that Jesus was not the son of 
God. He carried it to the village store, where it was read and freely dis- 
cussed; but his employer, Samuel Hill, snatched the manuscript out of 



24 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

These tactics so enraged Herndon, who plunged into the fray 
with all his ardor, that Lincoln had to warn him not to re- 
tort in kind, lest in his indignant zeal he do more harm than 
good. Quietly they organized the Whig forces, using political 
methods as against religious prejudice, and so thorough was 
the canvass that a few days before the end Lincoln could say 
to a friend of the other party, who promised to vote for him 
if it seemed necessary, "I have got the preacher, and don't 
need your vote. ' ' The Democrats, mistaking sound and fury 
for a rising tide of sentiment, were sure of a sweeping victory. 
But it fell otherwise ; the ' ' Sangamon Chief, ' ' as his friends 
called him, receiving a majority of sixteen hundred and elev- 
en ; a vote greater than his party strength — greater, indeed, 
than that of Henry Clay two years before. Herndon was 
jubilant, not more from pride that his partner had been elect- 
ed to Congress than that the spectre of religious bigotry had 
been laid. 

v/ Thereafter Lincoln was prudently reticent in matters of 
religion, except to Herndon and other young friends, and 
even with them he talked guardedly. Superstition, faith, and 
doubt were strangely blended in him, uniting a sense of iron 
law with belief in luck and omens as portents of good and 
evil fortune. So far as is known he formulated no system, 
though he was quite emphatic in his denial of certain doc- 
trines of the creeds — the atonement, for example, the mir- 
acles, and the dogma of eternal hell. But all who stood near 
him felt that in a poetic and mystic way he was profoundly 
religious, even if the cast of his mind made many things dim 
to him which were clear to others. If one would know Lincoln 
as he was, one must keep in mind his "talent for growth," 
as Horace Bushnell would say, and watch the slow unfolding 
of his faith. For surely, as far as a man may, he exemplified 
the spirit of Jesus in his life, and it is there that one must 
look for the real religion of the man. ^ 

his hands and put it into the stove. — Airahnm Lincoln, by Herndon and 
Weik, Vol. II, pp. 149-151. 

In his Autobiography Peter Cartwright does not mention the canvass 
of 1846, perhaps because he was not proud of it. 



LINCOLN & HERNDQN 25 

Although elected to Congress in 1846, Lincoln did not take 
his seat until December, 1847, the only Whig member from 
Illinois. The Mexican War was in progress and one of his 
friends, J. J. Hardin, had fallen in the battle of Buena Vista. 
Accompanied by his wife and two little boys, Robert and Ed- 
ward, he set out for Washington, leaving Herndon to take 
care of the practice of the firm. The Thirtieth Congress was 
an able and industrious body, having for leaders the last of 
the giants of former days — Webster, Calhoun, Clay, and 
grand old John Quincy Adams, who died in his seat before 
the end of the session. Douglas, after a brilliant career in the 
House, was now for the first time a member of the Senate. 
From the South, Calhoun, Mason, Hunter, and Jefferson Da- 
vis were in the Senate, and Stephens, Toombs, Rhett, and 
Cobb in the House. Lincoln, at once a favorite for his good- 
fellowship, was among those invited to the breakfasts given 
by Webster, where he met Joshua Giddings. Owing to the 
war-policy of President Polk, the Whigs were in the majority, 
and, while voting supplies to the army, were trying to make 
capital out of the victories of their generals in the field. Such 
a program, however artful, was not without its pitfalls, for 
it is perilous while the fighting is going on to cavil about a na- 
tional war, just or unjnst. By this method, as the sequel 
showed, Thomas Corwin dug his political grave in the Sen- 
ate. 

Herndon wrote to Lincoln asking him to send the Congres- 
sional Globe, assuring him at the same time of the exalted ex- 
pectations of his friends. In closing his reply, after giving 
instructions about the payment of certain debts — he was still 
paying on the old debt incurred by the purchase of the store 
at New Salem — Lincoln remarked : ' ' As you are all so anx- 
ious for me to distinguish myself, I have concluded to do so 
before long." Herndon wrote an encouraging letter, report- 
ing among other things the rumor of a wish for his re-elec- 
tion. Lincoln 's reply must be read : 

Washington, D. C, Jan. 8, 1848. 
Dear William : — Your letter of December 27 was received 
a day or two ago. I am much obliged to you for the troubla 



26 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

you have taken. ... As to speech-making, by way of 
getting the hang of the House I made a little speech two 
or three days ago on a postoffice question of no general 
interest. I find speaking here and elsewhere about the 
same thing. I was about as badly scared, and no worse, 
as I am when I speak in court. I expect to make one with- 
in a week or two, in which I hope to succeed well enough 
to wish you to see it. 

It is very pleasant to learn from you that there are some 
who desire that I should be re-elected. I most heartily 
thank them for their kind partiality ; and I can say, as ]\Ir. 
Clay said of the annexation of Texas, that " personally I 
would not object " to a re-election, although I thought at 
the time, and still think, it would be quite as well for me 
to return to the law at the end of a single term. I made 
the declaration that I would not be a candidate again, more 
from a wish to deal fairly with otliers, to keep peace among 
our friends, and to k^ep the district from going to the en- 
emy, than for any cause personal to myself; so that, if it 
should so happen that nobody else wishes to be elected, I 
could not refuse the people the right of sending me again. 
But to enter myself as a competitor of others, or to author- 
ize any one so to enter me, is what my word and honor 
forbid. Yours truly, A. Lincoln. 

On December 22nd Lincoln had introduced his " Spot Reso- 
lutions," so named because after quoting the words of Pres- 
ident Polk that the war had been justified by the fact that 
Mexico had " invaded our territory," and " shed the blood 
of our citizens on our own soil, ' ' they requested the President 
in a series of adroit questions to inform the House on what 
spot the alleged outrages had taken place.^ Of course the 
request, reviving as it did the charge that Polk had tricked 
the nation into a war at the behest of the Slave Power, met 
with silence at the White House. Nor was the silence broken 

1 All now agree as to the relation of the Polk administration to the 
Mexican "War. If any doubt had remained, it would have been dispelled 
by the luminous portrayal of the facts by Dr. "Von Hoist in his Consti- 
tutional History of the United States, Vol. Ill, p. 336. The rebuke ad- 
ministered to the Democratic party, by changing its majority into a 
minority, deserves, as "Von Hoist remarks, " to be counted among the most 
meritorious proofs of the sound and honorable feeling of the American 
nation. ' ' 



LINCOLN & HERNDON ^ 

when, three weeks later, Lincoln called up the resolutions 
and spoke in their support, demanding that the President re- 
ply fully, fairly, and candidly. No action was taken, but 
the speech served to distinguish its author by exciting the 
laughter of the Democrats and evoking a murmur of protest 
in the Whig ranks. Elated by its majority in the House, if 
not dazzled by the trophies of war, the Whig party had 
changed front, and preferred to deny rather than to admit 
that the President had exceeded his power. Others held that, 
since the war was closing, the criticism was belated. Even 
his friends at Springfield felt that Lincoln had gone too far 
when he voted for the Ashmun amendment to the supply bill, 
which affirmed that the war had been unjustly and unlaw- 
fully begun by the President. Herndon, in apprising his 
partner of the state of sentiment at home, argued that Polk 
had been justified by a threat of invasion, and that his action 
was made lawful by necessity. A letter from Lincoln revealed 
at once his willingness to stake all on a principle and his de- 
sire to be understood by his personal and political friends : 

Washington, D. C, Feb. 1, 1848. 
Dear William: — Your letter of the 19th ultimo was re- 
ceived last night, and for which I am much obliged. The 
only thing in it that I wish to talk to you at once about 
is that because of my vote for Ashmun 's amendment you 
fear that you and I disagree about the war. I regret this, 
not because of any fear that we shall remain disagreed after 
you have read this letter, but because if you misunder- 
stand I fear other good friends may also. 

The vote affirms that the war was " unnecessarily and 
unconstitutionally commenced by the President;" and I 
will stake my life that if you had been in my place you 
would have voted just as I did. Would you have voted 
what you felt and knew to be a lie? I know you would 
not. Would you have gone out of the House — skulked 
the vote ? I expect not. If you had skulked one vote, you 
would have had to skulk many more before the end of the 
session. Richardson 's resolutions, introduced before I made 
any move or gave any vote upon the subject, make the di- 
rect question of the justice of the war ; so that no man can 
be silent if he would. You are compelled to speak; and 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



your only alternative is to tell the truth or tell a lie. I can- 
not doubt which you would do. 

I do not mean this letter for the public, but for you. 
Before it reaches you you will have read my pamphlet 
speech and perhaps have been scared anew by it. After 
you get over your scare read it over again, sentence by 
sentence, and tell me what you honestly think of it. I con- 
densed all I could for fear of being cut off by the hour 
rule ; and when I had got through I had spoken but forty 
minutes. Yours forever, A. Lincoln. 

Herndon remained unconvinced, even after reading the 
speech sentence by sentence, and continued to argue the 
question in his letters, but he taxed his wits to allay the dis- 
content in the district. A note from Lincoln, dated the day 
following the above letter, showed his susceptibility to noble 
eloquence and the half-melancholy sentiment evoked by it. 
Although not yet forty years of age, his sorrow-worn spirit 
looked upon itself as already old and weary : 

Washington, D. C, Feb. 2, 1848. 
Dear William : — I just take my pen to say that Mr. Steph- 
ens, of Georgia, a little, slim, pale-faced, consumptive man, 
with a voice like Logan's, has just concluded the very best 
speech of an hour's length I ever heard. My old, withered, 
dry eyes are full of tears yet. If he writes out anything 
like he delivered it, our people shall see a good many cop- 
ies of it. Yours truly, A. Lincoln. 

One who reads that speech today finds it replete with legal 
and constitutional lore, with moral grandeur and righteous 
indignation, and tinged with such glimpses of battle and 
death, and needless suffering and sorrow, that it is no wonder 
that men wept over the picture.^ From that time forward 
Lincoln never ceased to admire Alexander H. Stephens, of 
Georgia. They did not meet again after their days in Con- 
gress until the memorable Hampton Roads Conference, in 
1865, when Stephens, then Vice-President of the Confed- 
eracy, with Campbell and Hunter, met President Lincoln and 
Secretary Seward in behalf of peace. After traversing the 
field of official routine to no purpose, Lincoln, still the old 
1 Abraham Lincoln in 1854, by Horace White (1908). 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 29 

Whig colleague, took Stephens aside, and, pointing to a paper 
he held in his hand, said : ' ' Stephens, let me write ' Union ' 
at the top of the page, and you may write below it whatever 
else you please. ' ' ^ Stephens found Lincoln the same jovial, 
tolerant, firm friend, but a changed man : — " The Union 
with him in sentiment rose to the sublimity of a religious 
mysticism." One of the best pictures of Lincoln in Congress 
is that left us by Stephens: 

1 knew Mr. Lincoln well and intimately, and we were 
both ardent supporters of General Taylor for President in 
1848. Mr. Lincoln, Toombs, Preston, myself, and others 
formed the first Congressional Taylor Club, known as ' ' The 
Young Indians," and organized the Taylor movement, 
which resulted in his nomination. . . . IMr. Lincoln 
was careful as to his manners, awkward in his speech, but 
was possessed of a very strong, clear, vigorous mind. . . . 
He always attracted and riveted the attention of the House 
when he spoke. His manner of speech, as well as thought, 
was original. He had no model. He was a man of strong 
convictions, and what Carlyle would have called an earnest 
man. He abounded in anecdote. He illustrated every- 
thing he was talking about by an anecdote, always exceed- 
ingly apt and pointed, and socially he always kept his 
company in a roar of laughter.- 

In June the Whigs met in national convention in Philadel- 
phia, and Lincoln attended as a delegate. Henry Clay was 
still his ideal statesman, but since it had been agreed that a 
military hero was needed to steal the war-thunder of the 
Democrats, he supported General Zachary Taylor, dubious as 
the Wliig faith of Taylor was known to be. No platform was 
adopted, and a resolution affirming as a party principle the 

^ The Compromises of Life, by Heury Watterson, pp. 164-6 (1903). 
This statement has been questioned, but it rests upon the authority of Mr. 
Stephens himself, who related it to Mr. Watterson, as he did to others, 
including Mr. Felix de Fontaine, the famous Southern war correspondent, 
with ^Yhom he passed the night in Eichmond after he came up from Hamp- 
ton Roads. This testimony, with the Joint Eesolution to.be passed by 
Congress, in Lincoln's handwriting, appropriating money to be paid the 
South for the slaves, would seem to be abundant evidence. 

2 Life of Lincoln, by I. N. Arnold, pp. 77, 78 (1884). 



30 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



Wilmot Proviso — designed to exclude slavery from territory 
acquired from Mexico — was repeatedly voted down. It 
was thus evident that the Whigs, like the Democrats, intended 
to evade the slavery issue, and Lincoln, though a ' ' conscience 
"Whig, ' ' seemed willing to leave that question in abeyance for 
the sake of party advantage. He returned in high hope and 
set to work zealously to elect the ticket, on which he was 
named as an elector, predicting victory to his friends and 
asking them to make Illinois do her part. A gloomy letter 
from Herndon, reporting extensive defections in the party 
ranks, pained him, but did not cool his enthusiasm. Instead, 
he wrote to his partner urging him to organize a band of 
" Young Indians " in Springfield, and giving specific in- 
structions how to do it: 

Washington, D. C, June 22, 1848. 
Dear William : — The whole field of the nation was scanned ; 
all is high hope and confidence. Illinois is expected to 
better her condition in this race. Under these circum- 
stances judge how heart-rending it was to come to my 
room and find and read your discouraging letter of the 
15th. Now, as to the young men. You must not wait to 
be brought forward by the older men. For instance, do 
you suppose that I would ever have got into notice if I had 
waited to be hunted up and pushed forward by older men ? 
You young men get together and form a " Rough and 
Ready Club," and have regular meetings and speeches. 
Take in everybody you can get. Harrison Grimsley, L. A. 
Enos, Lee Kimball, and C. W. Matheney will do to begin 
the thing; but as you go along, gather up all the shrewd, 
wild boys about town, whether just of age or a little under 
age — Chris Logan, Reddick Ridgely, Lewis Zwizler, and 
hundreds such. Let every one play the part he can play 
best — some speak, some sing, and all ' ' holler. ' ' Your 
meetings will be in the evenings ; the old men, and the wo- 
men, will go to hear you ; so that it will not only contribute 
to the election of " Old Zack," but will be an interesting 
pastime, and improving to the intellectual faculties of all 
engaged. Don't fail to do this. 

Your friend, A. Lincoln. 

But alas, Herndon was too profoundly disgusted with the 
Whig attitude on the slavery question to have any heart in 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 31 

the business of organizing a " Rough and Ready Club." Un- 
able to conceal his feelings, he permitted an interview to ap- 
pear in one of the Springfield papers in which he took a 
thoroughly disheartened view of the situation, intimating that 
the Whig party had run its course. He clipped the inter- 
view and sent it to Lincoln, accompanied by a letter telling 
of the dissatisfaction in the district, and reflecting rather se- 
verely on certain ' ' old fossils in the party who are constantly 
keeping the young men down. ' ' Just what lay behind Hern- 
don 's complaint is not quite clear; but it brought a character- 
istic reply, valuable for its homely philosophy and as a 
glimpse of the relations between the two men: 

Washington, D. C, July 10, 1848. 
Dear William : — Your letter covering the newspaper slips 
was received last night. The subject of that letter is ex- 
ceedingly painful to me ; and I cannot but think there is 
some mistake in your impression of the motives of the 
older men. I suppose I am now one of the older men ; and 
I declare on my veracity, which I think is good with you, 
that nothing could afford me more satisfaction than to learn 
that you and others of my young friends at home were do- 
ing battle in the contest, and endearing themselves to the 
people, and taldng a stand far above any I have ever been 
able to reach in their admiration. I cannot conceive that 
other older men feel differently. Of course I cannot dem- 
onstrate what I say ; but I was young once, and I am sure 
I was never ungenerously thrust back. I hardly know 
what to say. The way for a young man to rise is to im- 
prove himself in every way he can, never suspecting that 
anyone wishes to hinder him. Allow me to assure you that 
suspicion and jealousy never did help any man in any sit- 
uation. There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to 
keep a young man down ; and they will succeed, too, if he 
allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to 
brood over the attempted injury. Cast about, and see if 
this feeling has not injured every person you have known 
to fall into it. 

Now, in what I have said I am sure you will suspect 
nothing but sincere friendship. I would save you from a 
fatal error. You have been a laborious, studious young 
man. You are far better informed on almost all subjects 
than I have ever been. You cannot fail in any laudable 
object unless you allow your mind to be improperly di- 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



rected. I have some advantage of you in the world's ex- 
perience merely by being older ; and it is this that induces 
me to advise. Your friend, as ever, A. Lincoln. 

Two weeks later Lincoln delivered a speech in the House in 
behalf of Taylor, in which he attempted to justify the Whigs 
for trying to make capital out of a war whose injustice and 
unconstitutionality they had often, and even passionately, 
denounced. As an example of campaign oratory in the early 
West, full of stump vigor and racy of the soil, it was admir- 
able, and for its purpose effective, but quite out of place on 
the floor of the House. Walking up and down the aisles — 
as a correspondent of the Baltimore American described him 
— gesticulating with his long arms, he mingled drollery, wit, 
and shrewd party appeals with pitiless satire, clever cari- 
cature and outrageous illustration, while both sides roared 
with laughter. He admitted that he did not certainly know 
what Taylor, a slaveholder, would do with the Wilmot Pro- 
viso, and added: " I am a Northern man, or rather a western 
Free-State man, with a constituency I believe to be, and with 
personal feelings known to be, against the extension of slav- 
ery. As such, and with what information I have, I hope and be- 
lieve that General Taylor, if elected, would not veto the Pro- 
viso. But I do not know it. But even if I knew he would, I 
still would vote for him/^ not only as against General Lewis 
Cass, the Democratic candidate, but also against Martin Van 
Buren, the nominee of the Free-Soil and old Liberty parties, 
whose platform affirmed the principle of the Proviso. Party 
loyalty could not go further; and from so dubious a position, 
and the labored and ingenious explanations which it re- 
quired, he was glad to divert attention by ridiculing the mil- 
itary career of General Cass. Withal, there was an infectious 
quality in his rollicking burlesque, and a few passages may 
illustrate a style of speech, at once " Rough and Ready," in 
which he indulged at times, though less frequently, even so 
late as 1852: 

But the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Iverson) further 
says, we have deserted all our principles, and taken shelter 
under General Taylor's military coat-tail; and he seems 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 33 

to think this is exceedingly degrading. Well, as his faith 
is, so be it unto him. But can he remember no other mil- 
itary coat-tail, under which a certain other party have 
been sheltering for near a quarter of a century? Has he 
no acquaintance with the ample military coat-tail of Gen- 
eral Jackson? . . . Yes, sir, that coat-tail was not only 
used for General Jackson himself, but has been clung to 
with the grip of death by every Democratic candidate 
since. . . . Mr. Polk himself was " Young Hickory," 
" Little Hickory," or something so; and even now your 
campaign paper here is proclaiming that Cass and Butler 
are of the " Hickory stripe." No, sir, you dare not give 
it up. Like a horde of hungry ticks, you have stuck to the 
tail of the Hermitage lion to the end of his life; and you 
are still sticking to it, and drawing a loathsome sustenance 
from it, after he is dead. A fellow once advertised that he 
had made a discovery by which he could make a new man 
out of an old one and have enough of the stuff left to make 
a little yellow dog. Just such a discovery has General 
Jackson's popularity been to you. You not only twice 
made Presidents of him out of it, but you have enough of 
the stuff left to make Presidents of several comparatively 
small men since ; and it is your chief reliance now to make 
still another. 

Mr. Speaker, old horses and coat-tails, or tails of any 
sort, are not such figures of speech as I would be the first 
to introduce into discussion here; but as the gentleman 
from Georgia has thought fit to introduce them, he and you 
are welcome to all you have made or can make by them. If 
you have any more old horses, trot them out; any more 
tails, just cock them and come at us. . . . By the 
way, Mr. Speaker, did you know I am a military hero? 
Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk war I fought, bled, 
and came away. Speaking of General Cass's career, re- 
minds me of my own. I was not at Stillman's defeat, but 
I was about as near it as Cass was to Hull 's surrender ; and, 
like him, I saw the place very soon afterward. It is quite 
certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break, 
but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion. If 
Cass broke his sword, the idea is, he broke it in despera- 
tion ; I bent my musket by accident. If General Cass went 
in advance of me picking whortleberries, I guess I sur- 
passed him in charges upon wild onions. If he saw any 
live fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a 
good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes; and, al- 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



though I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say 
that I was often very hungry. 

Such a harangue, waggish at times almost to the point of 
buffoonery, is not edifying; still less so when read along- 
side his solemn, seer-like words ten years later; but it shows 
us the politician out of which the statesman was made. Some 
have thought that they could detect a tone of inner protest 
underneath the exaggerated humor of this speech, as of one 
who felt the dissonance of his position; but this is the error, 
into which so many have fallen, of reading his early years 
in the light of after time.^ No; it is plain that Lincoln had 
followed his party into a state of discord with himself, and 
with his true destiny, of which he was as yet hardly aware, 
though he began to realize it when he went campaigning for 
Taylor in New England after Congress had adjourned. For 
the sentiment in New England with regard to the Mexican 
war, and the issues involved in it, as \-ivified by Lowell in 
" The Bigelow Papers," required something more than bur- 
lesque to comdnee it. 

Lincoln spoke at Worcester, Lowell, Dedham, Roxbury, 
Chelsea, Cambridge, Boston, and other cities, where his in- 
imitable manner, his sagacious party pleas, and his homely 
humor delighted large audiences. Such reports of his speech- 
es as remain show that he did not at any time rise above mere 
partisanship, and the Wliig press gave him credit for winning 
back to the fold many who had gone off after ' ' the Free-Soil 
fizzle." At Worcester, amidst pronounced defection from the 
party, he argued at length, according to the Boston Adver- 
tiser, against the charge that Taylor had no political princi- 

1 One of the best studies of the making of Lincoln, tracing the union 
in him of the Folk-soul and World-spirit, is Abraham Lincoln, by D. J. 
Snider (1908). It is "an interpretation in Biography," as the subtitle 
indicates, accurate as to fact, often fanciful in inference, but always sug- 
gestive of the saying of Socrates, who likened man to a tree whose roots 
run up into the unseen. Only, as this author sees, in the case of Lincoln 
the roots ran both ways, down into the rough soil of the early West, and 
up into that mystical realm whence great souls draw their strength and 
charm. Hence a medley of haunting beauties and gnarled angularities. 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 35 

pies; justified the Whigs for putting forth no platform; held 
the Free-Soil position with regard to the restriction of slavery 
to be that of the Whigs — a passage he would hardly have 
risked before the Whig Club at Washington, of which Steph- 
ens, Preston, and Toombs were members; ridiculed the single 
plank in the Free-Soil platform, which reminded him of the 
Yankee peddler, who, in offering for sale a single pair of 
pantaloons, described them as " large enough for any man, 
and small enough for any boy; " criticised the followers of 
Van Buren for helping to elect Cass, and to their plea for the 
right and duty of acting independently, " leaving the conse- 
quences with God, ' ' opposed the doctrine — which he held 
to the end of his life — that ' ' when divine or human law 
does not clearly point out what is our duty, it must be found 
only by intelligent judgment, which takes account of the re- 
sults of action." Whig papers spoke of the speech as '* mas- 
terly and convincing," while the Free-Soil report described 
it as " a pretty tedious affair. ' ' 

As he went further into New England, however, Lincoln 
saw the real spirit and nature of the Free-Soil protest. After 
hearing Governor Seward speak in Tremont Temple, Boston, 
when they were together at the hotel, he said : "I have been 
thinking about what you said in your speech. I reckon you 
are right. We have got to deal with this slavery question, and 
got to give more attention to it hereafter than we have been 
doing." ^ On the fundamental issue of the injustice and bad 
policy of slavery he had never wavered, but beyond the dream 
of gradual emancipation he saw no way of dealing with it, 
except to push it back into a corner and let it die. At Wash- 
ington the question had not seemed imminent or urgent, but 
in New England it loomed like an ominous shadow upon the 

iLife of Wm. E. Seward, by F. W. Seward, Vol. II, p. 80 (1891). 
Once in his law practice Lincoln had met the slavery question in a rather 
embarrassing manner, having been retained by a slave-owner. For a 
history of this case, showing his half-heartedness in pleading a cause 
against his conscience, see an article entitled "Lincoln and the Maston 
Negroes," by Jesse W. Weik, in the Arena, April, 1897. Mr. Herndon 
contributed to the fund provided to transport the negroes to Liberia. 



36 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

horizon, portentous of impending storm, and the gathering 
clouds subdued his later speeches to a more serious tone. 

So meditating, Lincoln started home late in September, 
stopping at Albany where, in company with Thurlow Weed, 
he called on Millard Fillmore ; and at Niagara Falls — con- 
cerning which he made notes for a popular lecture.^ At home 
he found things in a bad way politically, as Herndon had duly 
forewarned him. The Democrats, determined to capture the 
district by fair means or foul, were using his opposition to the 
Mexican war to defeat Judge Logan, who was a candidate for 
his seat — Lincoln having stood aside for Logan according to 
agreement.^ The story was that Lincoln, by voting for the 
Ashmun amendment to the Supply Bill, had refused to sup- 
port the army in the field, thereby betraying his country. Of 
course it was false ; but among a people who would rather be 
warlike than right it was working havoc, and so industriously 
was it circulated that it lived to confront him in his debates 
with Douglas ten years later — though for Douglas, who 
knew better, there was no excuse for such tactics. Thus, 
while not a candidate for re-election, Lincoln was forced to 
defend his record in behalf of Judge Logan; and the result 
showed that he could have had a second term had he sought 
Tt Tlie~Whigs carried the district by a decided majority, the 
defeat of Logan being due chiefly to his own unpopularity, 
and not, as has been so often stated, to the position of Lin- 

1 Like all travelers Lincoln was impressed by that supendous spectacle, 
as his notes show; but his comment to Herndon betrayed no more suscep- 
tibility to natural grandeur than did Walt Whitman's record of his visit 
to the scene the same year. When asked what most impressed him when 
he stood before the Falls, he said: "The thing that struck me most 
forcibly when I saw the Falls, was, where in the world did all that water 
come from?" To Herndon, who was an enthusiastic lover of nature in 
all her moods, this reply was amazing beyond words. 

2 Of such an agreement there is little doubt ; the letters of Lincoln 
show it. Besides, in giving a reason why Lincoln was not a candidate 
for re-election, J. L. Seripps, his first biographer, says that "this was 
determined upon and publicly declared before he went to Washington, in 
accordance with an understanding among leading Whigs in the district." 
— Netv Yorlc Tribune Tracts, No. 6, p. 18 (1860). 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 



coin on the Mexican war. Mr. Herndon took little part in 
the campaign, his sympathies being with the Free-Soil party, 
but for the sake of his partner he remained a loyal Whig. 

While the election of Taylor inspired hopes that the ex- 
tension of slavery might be checked, as a fact it was the be- 
ginning of that re-alignment of forces amidst which, as a pen- 
alty for having evaded the supreme question of the age, the 
Whig party went to pieces. Returning to Washington, Lin- 
coln took a less conspicuous part in the discussions than in 
the former session ; but he stood consistently for a protective 
tariff, for the right of Congress to prohibit slavery in the Ter- 
ritories, and for every measure looking toward the gradual 
emancipation of the slaves which provided compensation to 
their owners. The Wilmot Proviso had passed the House in 
the preceding Congress, and had been killed in the Senate. 
But it reappeared in various shapes, and Lincoln afterwards 
said that he voted for it in one form or another ' ' about forty- 
two times " — a reckoning not quite accurate nuithematically, 
but sufficiently expressive of loyalty. Not liking its form, he 
voted against the Gott resolution asking the Committee for 
the District of Columbia to report a bill prohibiting the slave 
trade in the District. When it again came before the House, 
he offered a measure as a substitute, setting forth what in his 
view was just and practicable at that time. 

This bill forbade the bringing of slaves into the District, 
except as household servants of government officials who were 
citizens of Slave States, or selling them to be taken out of the 
District. It provided that children of slave mothers born 
after 1850 should be freed, subject to a temporary apprentice- 
ship, and the payment of their full cash value to the owners 
by the government; fugitive slaves escaping from Washing- 
ton and Georgetown were to be returned; and, finally, the 
whole measure was to be submitted to popular vote in the Dis- 
trict. So staunch an Abolitionist as Joshua R. Giddings sup- 
ported this measure, thinking it "as good a bill as we can 
get at this time," and on the further ground that it would 
save a few slaves from the Southern market. Lincoln actu- 
ally secured a promise of aid from W. W. Seaton, editor of 



38 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

the National Intelligencer and mayor of Washington, which 
gave some hope of success. But Southern Congressmen, fear- 
ing the bill as an entering wedge, won the mayor to their side, 
leaving Lincoln and Giddings unable even to bring their bill 
to a vote. 

On the whole, Lincoln seems to have enjoyed his life in 
Congress, where he attracted notice by his quaint simplicity 
of manner, as when he was seen carrying books from the Li- 
brary of the Supreme Court tied in a handkerchief slung 
over his shoulder. What marred his peace was the clamor of 
importunate office-seekers, which increased after the Whig 
victory until it became an annoyance, not without entangle- 
ments. The defeat of Judge Logan left the patronage of the 
district in his hand, and even after his term had expired he 
was often besought to use his influence to obtain, as he termed 
it, "a way to live without work. ' ' Apparently he was more 
successful in obtaining office for others than for himself, ow- 
ing, as Herndon explains, to a certain unconscious sense of 
superiority and pride which unfitted him to be a suitor for 
place. Having lost interest in the law, along with all hope of 
future political preferment, he tried to obtain the appoint- 
ment as Commissioner of the General Land Office, but failed. 
This was a keen disappointment, after he had taken so active 
a part in the nomination and election of Taylor. He was, 
however, offered the Governorship of the new Territory of 
Oregon, and made a special trip to Washington to discuss the 
subject. He had half a mind to accept, but his wife emphat- 
ically vetoed the suggestion, and, as Herndon adds, " that 
always settled it with Lincoln. ' ' Years later he was reminded 
that had he gone to Oregon, he might have come back as 
Senator, but never as President. " Yes, you are probably 
right," he replied, and then in a musing, dreamy tone, as if 
talking to himself, he added: " I have all my life been a 
fatalist. What is to be will be, or rather, I have found all my 
life as Hamlet says: 

" ' There's a divinity that shapes our ends. 
Rough hew them how we will.' " ^ 

1 Abraham Lincoln, by I. N. Arnold, p. 81 (188-4). 



LINCOLN & HEBNDON 39 

No doubt it was a divinity, shaping his end, that sent him 
back to Springfield and out on the muddy roads of the old 
Eighth Circuit, a saddened, disillusioned, and disappointed 
man. Politically, he seemed to himself, indeed, and to his 
friends, a man without a future ; but that was less important 
than the fact that he was not prepared for the future that 
awaited him. Even at forty he was singularly immature ; he 
had not yet come to a full mastery of his powers ; and the con- 
flicting elements in his nature needed to be melted and fused 
into a more solid unity. As has often been pointed out, this 
came at last with the emergence in him of a vein of mysticism, 
which, with his fine sagacity and his humane pity, more and 
more swayed him, softening all that was hard within and 
hardening all that was soft. Of this we are sure: when he 
returned to public life in 1854, as a living voice of a great 
cause, he was a changed man, moving with a firmer tread, in 
one way simple and frank, but in another a separate and de- 
tached soul — as one whose eye was set on some star visible 
to himself alone. 

II 

After an absence of nearly three years — having been im- 
mersed in politics since 1846 — it was with some reluctance 
that Lincoln resumed the practice of law. His term in Con- 
gress had made him widely known in the State, but more as 
a stump-speaker and politician than as a lawyer, and he had 
now to begin almost anew and make his way at the bar. He 
declined a partnership in a Chicago law firm, offered by 
Grant Goodrich, on the ground that he had a tendency to 
consumption and feared the effect of city life upon his health. 
He liked best the journeying life of the circuit, its freedom, 
its comradeship, with the human comedy of country taverns, 
and if he earned smaller fees he felt much happier. Mr. Hern- 
don writes : 

Of course, what practice he himself controlled passed into 
other hands. I retained all the business T could, and 
worked steadily on until, when he returned, our practice 
was as extensive as that of any other firm at the bar. Lin- 



40 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

coin realized that much of this was due to my efforts, and 
on his return he therefore suggested that he had no right 
to share in the business and profits that I had made. I 
responded that, as he had aided me and given me prom- 
inence when I was young and needed it, I could afford 
now to be grateful if not generous. I therefore recom- 
mended a continuation of the partnership, and we went 
on as before. I could notice a difference in Lincoln's move- 
ment as a la^vyer from this time forward. He had begun 
to realize a certain lack of discipline — a want of mental 
training and method. Ten years had wrought some 
change in the law, and more in the lawyers, of Illinois. . 
. . There was, of course, the same riding on circuit as 
before, but the courts had improved in tone and morals, 
and there M^as less laxity — at least it appeared so to Lin- 
coln. Political defeat had wrought a marked effect in him. 
It went below the skin and made a changed man of him. 
He was not soured by his seeming political decline, but 
still he determined to eschew politics from that time for- 
ward and devote himself entirely to the law. And now he 
began to make up for time lost in politics by studying the 
law in earnest. No man had greater power of application 
than he. Once fixing his mind on any subject, nothing 
could interfere with or disturb him. . . . It is proper to 
add that he detested the mechanical work of the office. 
He wrote few papers — less perhaps than any other man 
at the bar. Such work was usually left to me for the first 
few years we were together. Afterwards we made good 
use of students who came to learn the law in our office.^ 

Nor did Lincoln confine himself to the study of law, keenly 
as he felt the need of a more thorough familiarity with its 
philosophy and history. His stay in Washington, and par- 
ticularly his visit to the East, had made him aware of the 
defects of his early training, and more than once he remarked 
to Herndon — a student by nature and a wide reader by hab- 
it—that the " mast-fed lawyer." as he described himself, 
must have a broader basis and a better method if he was to 
compete with the college men who were coming to the West. 
Native wit and a flow of words would no longer win at the 
bar. More solid qualities were required, and he began a 
course of rigid mental discipline with the intent to improve 

1 Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. 1, pp. 307-312. 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 41 

his faculties, especially his powers of logic and of language. 
Hence his fondness for Euclid, which he carried with him on 
the circuit until he could with ease demonstrate all the prop- 
ositions in the six books; often studying far into the night, 
with a candle near his pillow, while his fellow-lawyers, half 
a dozen in a room, filled the air with interminable snoring. 
In the same way he undertook German, but seems never to 
have attained a working mastery of it. Shakespeare and the 
Bible he read devotedly, parts of them many times, as much 
for their simple, sine\^T, virile style as for their wealth of 
high and beautiful truth. This study of great books bore 
fruit in a more delicate literary instinct, a finer feeling for 
words, and the florid, fiery rhetoric in which he had indulged 
in his early years became an aversion. Therefore his advice 
to Herndon, which that ardent man, much given to lofty 
metaphor, could neither follow nor forget: — "Billy, don't 
shoot too high — aim lower and the common people will un- 
derstand you. They are the ones you want to reach. The 
educated and refined people will understand you any way. 
If you aim too high your ideas will go over the heads of the 
masses, and only hit those who need no hitting. ' ' ^ Years of 
such training made him a master of lucid, direct, vivid 
statement, whether he was arguing a case in a justice court 
or pleading a cause in the national forum. As one of his 
friends said, without waste of words he could put more flesh 
on the skeleton of an idea than any other man of his day. 

Mid-summer found Lincoln absorbed in the law, preparing 
for work on the circuit in the autumn. It was probably at 
this time that he began making notes of cases and authorities 
in a quaint little memorandum-book which he carried in his 

^ Reports of Lincoln 's reading vary, and it is not easy to know the 
facts. Herndon says that he read less and thought more than any other 
man of his day, while others seem determined to graduate him from a 
university. The truth lies mid-way, perhaps, as Prof. Dodge has shown 
in his study of Abraham Lincoln: The Evolution of His Literary Style 
(1900). He was not a wide reader, apart from the newspapers, but he 
read carefully, assimilating the essence of a few great books. His habit 
of committing to memory bifs of poetry made his range of reading appear 
more extensive than it really was. 



42 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

pocket, and which on the circuit served as a ready reference 
when it was not possible to consult law reports.^ His figure, 
garbed in black, was familiar in Springfield as he strode 
along, usually with one of his boys struggling to keep up, be- 
tween his home on Eighth Street and his office on the Square. 
The office of the firm was on the second floor of a brick build- 
ing just across from the court house — a large back room, 
afterwards divided into two rooms, with windows overlooking 
stable-roofs, ash-heaps, and dingy back yards. Two baize- 
covered tables, a few chairs, a cot, an old fashioned " secre- 
tary," and a book-case containing perhaps two hundred law- 
books, made up the furnishings. Few books were needed, as 
the State-house library was nearby for reference when other 
sources of information failed. Earely has an office been con- 
ducted with less method. Lincoln carried most of his mem- 
oranda in his high " stove-pipe " hat, together with bits of 
poetry and other items clipped from the newspapers, of which 
he was an assiduous reader — sometimes to the annoyance of 
his partner. Often he would have to hunt for lost documents, 
and upon one of the bundles which littered his desk he wrote, 
" When you can't find it anywhere else, look in this.'' What 
order there was came when some student clerk, unable to en- 
dure the confusion, undertook to sweep the room and sort the 
papers. Several years later John H. Littlefield, in cleaning 
up the office, found a quantity of Congressional garden seed 
mixed with Wliig speeches and Abolitionist pamphlets, and 
some of the seed had sprouted in the accumulated dirt. He 
has left us vivid memories of the two men, botli of whom had 
minds too broad and grave for the details of life. 

In many partnerships there is one man who is all gentle- 
ness and geniality, who would if he could ; and another man 
on whom devolves the rough work; whose " No " is all the 
harder for the air of mild benignity which sits so well on his 
colleague. One who attends to the nether side of the practice 
must be content to be thought harsh and unapproachable, to 

1 This memorandum-book is now in the possession of Mr. Jesse W. 
Weik, of Greencastle, Indiana, to whose courtesy and kindness all Lincoln 
students are indebted. 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 43 

be misunderstood, if not maligned. The firm of " Lincoln & 
Herndon" lacked such a man, neither partner having the sat- 
urnine grimness, or the brusque aloofness, for such a part; 
though Herndon would have made a better attempt at it had 
not his partner, who loved men more than money, interfered. 
If he brought suit for a fee and obtained judgment, the vic- 
tim would hunt up Lincoln and by means of a skilfully woven 
tale of distress secure release. Lincoln made such small 
charges for his services that Herndon, and even Judge Davis, 
expostulated with him, but to no purpose. He could not be 
induced to sue for a fee, except in rare instances when a cli- 
ent, able to pay, was obviously trying to defraud the firm. 
Though his name appears in the Illinois reports in one hun- 
dred and seventy-three cases, his income was never more than 
two or three thousand dollars a year. Twice in later years — 
as attorney for the Illinois Central Railway Company, and in 
the McCormick reaper patent litigation — he received what 
were then called large fees; but during the first four years 
after he left Congress he was often hard pressed for money. 
His father had moved three times, and when he died in 1851, 
there was a mortgage on the farm in Coles County to be 
raised, his mother to help, and a shiftless step-brother to ad- 
vise in letters plain-spoken and quaintly wise. But he worked 
hard, and rapidly developed into one of the best trial lawyers 
in the state. 

Law practice was more difficult then than now, by reason 
of the dearth of authority and the necessity of reasoning out 
eases upon original principles. Young men, especially, were 
at a disadvantage in intricate cases, and the habit was gen- 
eral of employing leaders of the bar from a distance. Hence 
the circuit-riding practice. Local attorneys were retained to 
work up the cases and prepare the papers awaiting the ar- 
rival of the journeying bar, from among whom litigants would 
select their champions. Such a practice was admirably suited 
to the peculiar genius of Lincoln, relieving him of details, 
which he detested, and giving free play to his powers of logic, 
of strategy, and of humor. While, as a lawyer, he was not 
learned, all agreed that he was able, skilful, and just, singu- 



44 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

larly lucid in stating a case, courteous but searching in ex- 
amining mtnesses, forceful and sagacious in argument, and 
when the case turned upon human or moral issues one of the 
most persuasive advocates at the bar. Quick in taking cases 
into his mind, having a remarkable memory for evidence, if 
he found beneath the facts a human principle, his heart 
warmed in the work of developing it. At times he would se- 
clude himself while revolving some question raised by a vil- 
lage client, which had expanded into a great human problem, 
and he never failed to present it so vividly that dull minds 
grew alert and shrewd ones absorbed. His presence was com- 
manding, with a certain modest dignity not easily defined, and 
the spell of his marvelous personality gave him a subtle, al- 
most occult power over juries. Sometimes, though not often, 
his humor won the ease, as when he rebutted a charge of 
trespass by an inimitable description of the perplexity of a 
wandering pig which found the fence of the plaintiff so crook- 
ed that it invariably came out on its own side. But he was 
not always mild, not always funny, and when he was angry 
it was a terrible spectacle. Outside the court room he talked 
politics, told stories, played pranks, and now and then slipped 
away from his fellows to walk alone, with his lips close shut, 
softly humming, and returned strangely sad and exhausted. 
Twice a year, spring and autumn, the lawyers started out 
on the circuit, following the train of Judge David Davis, 
massive and able, and Lincoln seems to have been almost the 
only one who went the rounds of the circuit. Herndon was 
out with him about one-fourth of the time — long enough to 
learn that life on the circuit was a gay one, and that Lincoln 
loved it — and he has left us vivid pictures of dramatic court 
scenes, of famous murder trials, of parlejdng law^yers and 
lying witnesses ; of the camaraderie of country taverns where 
judge and jury, lawyers and litigants, and even prisoners, sat 
at table together ; of a long, gaunt figure stretched upon beds 
too short for him, his feet hanging over the foot-board, his 
head propped up, poring over the Elements of Euclid; of 
etc ry-telling jousts that continued, amidst roars of laughter, 
far into the night. Herndon looked after the business in 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 45 

Springfield, while Lincoln, when he set out on a tour of the 
circuit, which kept him away for months, continued to the 
end, rarely returning home to spend the Sabbath witli his 
family. 

Nothing could be duller than remaining on the Sabbath 
in a country inn of that time after adjournment of court. 
Good cheer had expended its force during court week, and 
blank dullness succeeded ; but Lincoln would entertain the 
few lingering roustabouts of the barroom with as great zest, 
apparently, as he had previously entertained the court and 
bar, and then would hitch up his horse, " Old Tom," as 
he was called, and, solitary and alone, ride off to the next 
term in course. One would naturally suppose that the 
leading lawyer of the circuit, in a pursuit which occupied 
nearly half his time, would make himself comfortable, but 
he did not. His horse was as raw-boned and weird-looking 
as himself, and his buggy, an open one, as rude as either; 
his attire was that of an ordinary farmer or stock-raiser, 
while the sum total of his baggage consisted of a very at- 
tenuated carpetbag, an old weather-beaten umbrella, and a 
short blue cloak reaching to his hips — a style which was 
prevalent during the Mexican War.^ 

Reminiscence lies warm upon the life of Lincoln; upon no 
part of it, perhaps, so warmly as upon these circuit-riding 
years. Books dealing with this period glow with picturesque 
and humorous memories,^ leaving the impression that what 
joy there was in a life destined to great sacrifice was found 
on the old Eighth Circuit. Too often he has been portrayed, 
perhaps unconsciously, as a mere story-teller, which was as 
far as possible from the truth, though it is true that his 
humor was brightest when his heart was most forlorn. That 
may account, in part, for the memories of these years of pov- 
erty, obscurity, and baffled ambition, humor being his re- 

1 Life of Lincoln, by W. C. Whitney (1892). 

2 Of these, Life on the Circuit with Lincoln, by W. C. Whitney (1892), 
is doubtless the best, though it has been criticized as exploiting a kind of 
Damon and Pythias intimacy between Lincoln and Whitney, of which the 
old Illinois friends of Lincoln were unaware; Abraham Lincoln, by I. N. 
Phillips, Appendix (1901); while the legal aspects of the circuit-riding 
practice have been admirably portrayed by F. T. Hill, Lincoln the Law- 
yer (1906). 



46 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

laxation from irksome toil without and pressing thoughts 
within. But he was fundamentally serious and a man of 
dignity, and while men spoke of him as " Old Abe " behind 
his back, in his presence they indulged in no uncouth famil- 
iarities. His humor — and it was humor rather than wit, 
for he was essentially a poet and a man of pathos — lay 
close to that profound and inscrutable melancholy which 
clung to him and tinged all his days — the shadow, perhaps, 
of some pre-natal gloom, woven in the soul of his mother, 
and deepened, no doubt, by a temperament which felt the 
tragedy in mortal things. It was not for his humor that men 
loved him, nor yet for his intellect with its blend of integrity 
and shrewdness, which all admired, but for his manliness, his 
simplicity, his sympathy, and for much else which we feel 
even now and cannot put into words. To this day, men who 
were close to Lincoln have a memory as of something too 
deep for speech. They recount his doings, they recall his 
words, they laugh at his stories, but they always leave some- 
thing untold: only a light comes into their eyes, and one 
realizes what a well-founded reverence is. 

Of the inner life of Lincoln during these buried years — 
from 1849 to 1854 — few glimpses remain, but they are 
enough to show that it was a time of revolution and crisis. 
Mentally he was occupied as never before with those ques- 
tions which every man, soon or late, must settle for himself; 
that he met and made terms with them is certain, but by what 
process we know not. What we do know is that he loved the 
old Eighth Circuit and the comradeship of the men with 
whom he journeyed. There he traveled with Leonard Swett, 
Judge Logan, E. H. Baker, 0. H. Browning, Richard J. 
Oglesby, John M. Palmer, and others, and the friendships 
formed were enduring. It is not too much to say that it was 
" a small group of fellow-practitioners on the Eighth Cir- 
cuit — Davis, the judge; Swett, the advocate; and Logan, 
the leader of the bar, but especially Davis — who forced Lin- 
coln upon the Chicago Convention in 1860, and thus gave him 
to the nation. ' ' ^ Nor do we forget that it was largely the 

1 Lincoln the Lawyer, by F. T. Hill, p. 195 (1906). 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 47 

influence of old associations, which he could never entirely 
resist, that led him, in 1862, to appoint Judge David Davis 
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. To the end of his 
life, amidst the whirl of politics and the storm of war, those 
circuit-riding days were invested for him with a grave and 
joyous memory. 

Ill 

Those were great days in the National Senate, where the giants 
of a former era were wrestling with the problem which was 
to rend the nation. Voices of union and disunion clashed 
and echoed afar : Calhoun calling for war in the name of the 
South; Webster, for the sake of the Union, turning his back 
on the cause of Abolition; Seward announcing a law higher 
than that even of the Constitution ; Douglas maucjeuvering for 
advantage; and central among them all, the fiery, pathetic, 
fascinating figure of Clay, using all the resources of his 
genius, and all the influence of his extraordinary personality, 
in behalf of National Unity. It was the end of an epoch, the 
last effort of the old masters, in conflict with new leaders, to 
solve a riddle which had vexed the Republic from the earli- 
est years. 

Out of the stormy debate, which strained the nation to its 
utmost tension, emerged the Compromise of 1850, the vale- 
dictory triumph of Henry Clay.^ By the terms of that com- 
pact, California became a free State; Utah and New Mexico 
were organized as Territories, without attaching to them the 
proviso excluding slavery ; North Texas was to be reorganized, 

1 Henry Clay died feeling that the principle of Compromise was tri- 
umphant, and his closing eyes saw little sign of the storm clouds in the 
sky. The main purpose of his life, he declared, was not that one often 
accredited to him — to be elected President — but that expressed in the 
words: "If any man desires to know the leading and paramount object 
of my public life the preservation of the Union will furnish him the key. ' ' 
— Henry Clay, by T. H. Clay (1910). "In later years it was recalled as 
a matter of dramatic significance that Henry Clay, 'Compromise incar- 
nate,' tottered from the Senate chamber for the last time the day that 
Charles Sumner, ' Conscience incarnate, ' entered its doors. ' ' — Charles 
Sumner, by G. H. Haynes (1910). 



48 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

and slavery extended over it; and Texas was to be paid ten 
million dollars for her relinquishment of New Mexico. Also, 
the domestic slave trade was prohibited in the District of 
Columbia, and a new Fugitive Slave Law, cruel and stringent 
in its provisions, was to be enacted. This measure was held 
to be a master stroke of domestic diplomacy, and the leaders 
drew up and signed a paper to the effect that there should be 
no more agitation, and pledging each other to oppose any 
men who should mar the peace of the land. So once more, 
it was fondly believed, that tormenting shade had been put 
to its final rest. 

We who are wise after the fact wonder why more men of 
that day did not discern, what is now so obvious, that the 
dualism of the nation could not endure. Into the heart of 
the Compact of 1850 had crept the fatal principle of non-in- 
terference by Congress with slavery in the Territories, which 
was destined, under the seductive title of " popular sov- 
ereignty," with Douglas as its champion, to undo the healing 
work of years. Added to this was the growing tendency in 
the South, complained of by Webster, to regard slavery, not 
as it was regarded in the early days of the Republic, as an 
evil to he gradually extinguished, hut as an institutioyi to he 
cherished, and preserved, and extended.^ Other causes con- 
tributed to the alarm in the minds of far-sighted men, chief 
among them being the passionate, palpitating feeling which 
found voice in Uncle Tom's Cahin, by Harriet Beecher 
Stowe — whom Lincoln once introduced as * ' the little wo- 
man who caused the war" — which began as a serial in the 
National Era in 1851. That flaming story revealed, in the 
light of a flash, what a crucifying edict the Fugitive Slave 
Law was to many people in the North. Many felt that be- 
cause it was the law of the land they must not resist it, but 

1 See Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Secession, by B. B. 
Munford (1909), a book of real original research based upon a careful 
Btudy of historical sources — manuscripts, public records, and newspapers — 
in which the reactionary attitude of Southern men is shown to have been 
largely due to the agitation of radical Abolitionists in the North. The 
book is valuable for its point of view and its armory of facts. 



LINCOLN & HERNDON 49 

obey it they could not. Such was the mood of tlie nation, 
aggravated by a temperance crusade and the beginnings of the 
Know-Nothing fanaticism, when it entered the campaign of 
1852. 

Seldom have political parties appealed to the country with 
a less vital issue than that over which the followers of Frank- 
lin Pierce and General Scott were divided. Both parties, se- 
curely muzzled by the Slave Power, \ied with each other in 
courting the Southern vote, by insisting, in their platforms, 
that the Compact of 1850 was final, and that the Fugitive 
Slave Law must be enforced. Despite the flow of rhetoric 
about union and prosperity, all who had eyes to see knew that 
it was a campaign of futile evasion. Newspaper wits are of- 
ten prophets. One sceptic expressed in verse his doubts about 
the various attempts to kill the slavery question, which were 
indeed not unlike the policy of the ancients who conceived of 
the earth as flat and resting upon the back of a tortoise, which 
in turn reposed upon a coiled serpent. When asked about 
the serpent, they declared an end of inquiry and said it was 
all right any way. Hence the misgivings of the wit : 

To kill twice dead a rattlesnake, 
And off his scaly skin to take. 
And through his head to drive a stake. 
And every bone within him break. 
And of his flesh mince-meat to make; 
To burUj to sear, to boil and bake. 
Then in a heap the whole to rake, 
And over it the besom shake, 
And sink it fathoms in the lake. 
Whence after all quite wide awake 
Comes back that very same old snake. ^ 

Lincoln emerged from his obscurity long enough to make a 
few languid speeches for Scott and to pronounce a eulogy of 
Henry Clay, who died in June of that year. His speeches 
in behalf of Scott were marked more by jealousy of Doug- 
las — then for the first time a national figure, pampered, flat- 
tered, and pluming himself for the Presidency — than by any 
real interest in the party. Wlien invited by the Whig Club 
1 Quoted in Abraham Lincoln, by E. P. Oberholtzer, p. 82 (1904). 



50 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

of Springfield to reply to a speech made by Douglas in the 
South, he was almost petulant of temper from first to last. 
He had no heart in the business; his humor, when not 
strained, was at times coarse; and even Herndon, always an 
admirer, admitted that the effort was flat and unworthy of 
its author. Of his eulogy of Clay, while it was in no sense a 
great speech, more may be said. It was much more than a 
perfunctory memorial. He was still loyal to his hero, still 
under the charm of that " long-enduring spell " which had 
bound the souls of men not only to Henry Clay but to the 
cause of the Union ; and this gave glow and color to his trib- 
ute. He upheld the position of Clay as against that of the 
Abolitionists on the one hand, and of those — increasing in 
number — on the other, who sought to perpetuate slavery, 
and were beginning to assail the " charter of freedom, the 
declaration that all men are created free and equal." No 
allusion was made to the Compromise of 1850, which he ap' 
parently accepted regretfully as one accepts something less 
than the best. Clearly he had come to see that the slavery 
issue could no longer be compromised, but he still hoped 
that some plan of gradual emancipation and colonization 
might be devised. Yet what a fearful looking for, of judg- 
ment to come, was foreshadowed in his closing words ! 

Only a few men, said Edmund Burke, really see what is 
passing before their eyes, and Lincoln was one of them. By 
nature a watcher of the signs of the times, he did not read 
them amiss, but he was slow to admit, even to himself, the 
bitter truth as he saw it. The words of Calhoun in the Sen- 
ate two years before still echoed in his ears; and what he 
feared more than all else was a clash between the radicals 
of the North and the hotspurs of the South, and a rush to 
arms. When John T. Stuart, his former partner, warned 
him that the time was coming when all men would have to 
be either Abolitionists or Democrats, he replied ruefully but 
emphatically: " When that time comes my mind is made 
up." But he hoped, almost against hope, that the time 
would not come, for he regarded the Abolition movement 
as an erratic crusade, led by moral idealists rather than by 



LINCOLN & HERNDON ^51 

practical men. None the less lie brooded over the abyss, 
often gloomily, nor did he see any way out of the depths 
into which the nation seemed to be rushing. 

Herndon voted the Whig ticket in 1852, swearing elo- 
quently and picturesquely that he would never do so any 
more. Yet no doubt he would have voted it again, had the 
party lived to put a ticket in the field; for with all his 
wild words, he had a certain dog-sagacity, as he confessed, 
which suspected his own enthusiasms, and made him rely 
upon the calm, slow, sure logic of his partner. At times he 
would try to prod Lincoln out of his tardy conservatism, 
descanting fervently on the needs of the hour, only to re- 
ceive the reply: " Billy, you're too rampant and spontan- 
eous." Their relations were free and easy without being 
familiar, and the attitude of Herndon was that of a younger 
brother toward one whom he loved, but whose greatness he 
felt and admired. At the same time Lincoln was becoming 
every day more serious, more solitary, more studious than 
ever before. Mr. Herndon writes : 

I was in correspondence with Sumner, Greeley, Phillips, 
and Garrison, and was thoroughly imbued with all the 
rancor drawn from sueli sources. I adhered to Lincoln, 
relying on the final outcome of his sense of justice and 
right. Every time a good speech on the great issue was 
made I sent for it. Hence you could find on my table the 
latest utterances of Giddings, Phillips, Sumner, Seward, 
and one whom I considered grander than all of the others 
— Theodore Parker. Lincoln and I took such papers as 
the Chicago Tribune, New York Tribune, Anti-Slavery 
Standard, Emancipator, and National Era. On the other 
side of the question we took the Charleston Mercury, and 
the Richmond Enquirer. I also bought a book called "So- 
ciology," written by one Fitzhugh, which defended and 
justified slavery in every conceivable way. In addition 
I purchased all the leading histories of the slavery move- 
ment, and other works which treated on that subject. 
Lincoln himself never bought many books, but he and I 
both read those I have named. After reading them we 
would discuss the questions they touched upon and the 
ideas they suggested, from our different points of view.' 

1 Abraham Lincoln, by HerndoD and Weik, Vol. II, p. 32. 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



All that year and the next — 1853-4 — this study went on 
at odd hours, in the midst of a practice always busy, and 
rapidly becoming lucrative, until they knew the subject 
from both sides, through and through, from end to end. 
This fact should be kept in mind by those who seem to think 
that Lincoln was led by intuition rather than by brains, and 
that his speeches were made as if by magic. These country 
lawyers canvassed the slavery question in all its phases, 
and when they had finished no conceivable aspect of it had 
escaped them. One arrived at truth by swift flashes of in- 
sight, the other by a slow and labored process; but when 
they arrived they stood together, and nothing could move 
them. During this time Herndon served as mayor of Spring- 
field to the credit of himself and his city, while his partner 
was as indifferent to local affairs as he was to the beauty 
of trees and flowers. 



CHAPTER III 

''The Genius of Discord" 

I 

History had dealt severely with Stephen A. Douglas for the 
part he played in the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, in 
1854. Of that Compact he had said, some years before, that 
it was ' ' canonized in the hearts of the American people as a 
sacred thing which no ruthless hand would ever be reckless 
enough to disturb." Yet he it was who made that Compact 
null and void, opening Pandora's bos and letting loose again 
the furies of sectional discord which all hoped had been laid 
and locked up. Whatever may have been his motives — and 
they are as muddy today as they were then — he precipitated 
a revolution, and became the avant courier of Civil "War. 

Wliile it is true that Senator Douglas did not originate the 
Repeal, yet as the leader of his party he not only accepted th(' 
fatal amendment,^ but boasted of it as his work and the master 
feat of his career. Drawn further than perhaps he had in- 
tended to go, he was forced to follow if he was to retain his 
leadership, much less his hope of the Presidency. So astute 
and sagacious a politician could not have been unaware of the 
temper of the country and the peril of his course. He, him- 
self, had prophesied it in 1850. Yet so obsessed was he by 
his ambition that he was deaf to the voices of protest heard 
while the Bill was brewing in Congress, and plunged into a 
policy of madness which, as some of his best friends warned 
him, sealed his political doom. Adroitly and persuasively he 

1 Strangely enough, the amendment to repeal the Missouri Compro- 
mise was introduced by Senator Archibald Dixon, of Kentucky, a Whig 
who had been appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Henry 
Clay. — The True History of the Missouri Compromise and its He peal, by 
Mrs. A. Dixon (1899). Tt was the irony of fate that the work of Clay 
should be undone by his successor. 



54 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

tried to justify himself by appeal to his elastic dogma of 
" popular sovereignty," which had apparently taken such 
hold of him as to obscure his mind, otherwise clear. That 
dogma would have meant, in its ultimate logic, that there 
could be no slavery without the consent of the slaves; but it 
became in his hands only another form of that referendum 
whereby politicians seek to evade issues and shift responsibil- 
ity.^ When tested on the prairies of Kansas it proved to be 
" squatter sovereignty," enacting a wearisome story of rump 
legislatures, fraudulent constitutions, and outrages at the 
polls, from which Douglas himself revolted. Whatever may 
have been the motives of Douglas, the Repeal was an act of 
political suicide for himself and a tragedy for the nation. 

It has often been noted, as an instance of how great things 
hang upon small things, that it was a sleepy old game of whist 
that led to the repeal of the Compact of 1820. The Kansas- 
Nebraska Bill was framed, so runs the story, to make a Terri- 
tory immediately west of Missouri, which David R. Atchison 
was to go and organize and bring in as a State ; so returning 
to the seat in the Senate he had lost, and back to the sleepy 
old game of whist whose players loved and missed him. The 
country itself, resting in the belief that slavery was in course 
of ultimate extinction, was more than half asleep. But when 
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was introduced ^ there was a rude 



1 Concerning the acrobatics of Douglas much has been written, and 
many have been the theories as to his motives. Perhaps the best discus- 
sion of the whole subject, from all sides, is The Bcpeal of the Missouri 
Compromise: Its Origin and Authorship, by P. Orman Eay (1909). 
There all the circumstances are recalled without heat or passion, and if 
the question of motive is not settled it is because it must remain a puzzle. 
See Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, Chap. XI (1908). Some of 
the motives attributed to Senator Douglas by polemical writers are in- 
credible; he was unwise, but he was neither stupid nor vicious. 

2 Of the seventy Democrats in the Illinois Legislature, then in session, 
only three were in favor of the Bill. Two days later orders came from 
Douglas that resolutions be passed endorsing it, and so complete was the 
' ' flop ' ' that only three Senators stood out against it. Those three were 
John M. Palmer, Norman Judd, and B. C. Cook, nor could they be 
whipped into line. See History of the Eepublican Party, by F. A. 
Flower (1884). 



^^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD '^ 55 

awakening, and when it became a law there burst forth such 
a blaze of protest as had not been seen in the land since 1776. 
This move was unexpected by the masses of the people, and a 
proposition to repeal the Constitution could hardly have 
stirred the nation more deeply. So daring an act filled the 
North with amazement, which quickly deepened into furious 
indignation, and men everywhere felt the fear, the hope, and 
the dread of impending upheaval. The signs were unmistak- 
able. No mere party or faction arrayed itself against the 
scheme ; the moral force of the North was against it. At last 
it was clear that the supreme question, now reopened by the 
insanity of the slave-holding interest and its allies, had to be 
settled if the Republic was to endure. No longer was it a 
sleepy old game, but an " irrepressible conflict " destined to 
rage with ever increasing force until slavery was destroyed 
in the flames kindled by its own folly. 

Amidst the confusion only one thing was certain, and that 
was that the barrier which had excluded slavery from the ter- 
ritory in question had been swept away. The " stump- 
speech injected into the belly of the Bill," as Senator Thomas 
H. Benton called it, declared the policy to be applicable to 
any State or Territory. Consternation reigned, and no one 
could tell what a year might bring forth. Whigs and Demo- 
crats of anti-slavery sentiments, who had long been deaf to 
the appeals of Abolition leaders, began to organize themselves 
into a new party to defeat the men who had wrought this 
mischief. In Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio they assumed 
the name Republican ; everywhere they were known as * ' Anti- 
Nebraska men," drawn together by a common determination 
to resist the attempt of the South to seize and enslave Kansas. 
In Illinois, however, the movement was slower. Many dis- 
cordant elements delayed fusion, especially in the southern 
counties where opposition to Douglas was regarded with the 
more disfavor because it was associated with bolting Demo- 
crats and Abolitionist extremists.^ But in the northern 



1 For the movements of Abolitionists in Illinois, see "Anti-Slavery 
Agitation in Illinois," by Z. Eastman, in Blanchard 's History of Illinois 
(Old Edition). And more recently, Negro Servitude in Illinois, by N. D. 



56 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

counties, settled chiefly by folk of New England origin, it was 
different. In Chicago, pulpit and press were arrayed against 
the Repeal — particularly the pulpit, which turned the city 
blue and sulphurous in its damnation of Douglas. Literal fire 
was also used to burn him in hundreds of effigies, by whose 
light he once said himself he could travel all the way from 
Illinois to the Atlantic. 

Two or three days after his arrival in Chicago, Senator 
Douglas announced that on the night of September 1st, he 
would speak in front of North Market Hall. All that after- 
noon flags were at half mast on lake boats, and when the 
crowds began to gather church bells were tolled, as though 
some great public calamity impended. When Douglas began 
to address the people, at a quarter past eight, he was greeted 
with groans, jeers, and hisses. He paused until these had sub- 
sided, but no sooner did he ])egin again than pandemonium 
broke loose. Interruption was something that he could never 
brook good-naturedly, and he appeared at a grave disadvantage 
and in no conciliatory mood, amidst the rapid fire of questions 
aimed at him. For over two hours he wrestled with the noisy 
crowd, appealing to their sense of fairness; but he could not 
gain a hearing. ' ' Finally, for the first time in his life, he was 
forced to admit defeat. Drawing his watch from his pocket 
and observing that the hour was late, he shouted, in an inter- 
val of comparative quiet, ' It is now Sunday morning — I 'II 
go to church, and you may go to Hell! ' At the imminent 
risk of his life, he went to his carriage and was driven to his 
hotel. ' ' ^ After Douglas left, some one announced that Abra- 

Harris (1904). This last volume sifts a vast mass of material and ^ves 
the winnowed result, and is interesting in its account of Abolitionist 
journalism in the State. 

1 Stephen A. Douglas: A Study in American Politics, by Allen John 
son, p. 259 (1908). "I was on the platform as a reporter," writes Mr 
Horace White, "and my recollection of what happened is still vivid, 
There was nothing like violence at any time, but there was disorder grow 
iug out of the fact that the people had come prepared to dispute Doug 
las's sophisms and that Douglas was far from conciliatory when he found 
himself facing an unfriendly audience. " — Lincoln in 1854, by Horace 
White, p. 9 (1908). 



^^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD'' 57 

ham Lincoln, who liad come in during the evening, would re- 
ply from the same platform. 

II 

Lincoln was losing interest in politics, as we learn from his 
oft-cited " Autobiography," when the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise roused him. He was out on the Eighth Circuit 
when the news of the Repeal came, and Judge Dickey, who 
shared his room at the local tavern, reports that Lincoln sat 
on the edge of the bed and discussed the political situation 
until far into the night. At last Dickey fell asleep, but when 
he awoke in the morning Lincoln was still sitting up in bed, 
deeply absorbed in meditation. ' ' I tell you, Dickey, ' ' he said, 
as though continuing the argument of the previous evening, 
" this nation cannot exist Jialf -slave and half -free! " In one 
variant or another, this phrase began to recur in his letters 
and in his office conversation, which Herndon tells us became 
more animated and earnest. In his eulogy of Clay he had 
quoted something very like it, though in less sententious 
phrase, from Jefferson; but the words did not then have the 
force of tragic reality. Now " the Genius of Discord " had 
done its work, and he saw the republic a house divided against 
itself and tottering to a fall. Still, for four years he kept his 
slogan in his heart, ruminating upon it and discussing it with 
his friends, waiting for the ripening of events. 

At Chicago he made plea for a return to the Missouri Com- 
promise, and in public he clung to that forlorn hope until the 
Dred Scott decision swept it away. But in his private thought 
he knew, as he said to Herndon, that the two forces, long kept 
apart like wild beasts chained, each growling and struggling 
to be free, meant inevitable conflict. Nor did any one who 
stood near him doubt on which side his sympathies were, 
though he held himself in reserve, coming forward to speak 
and act only when he was fully satisfied that the hour was 
ripe. Often his feelings — intense and almost volcanic at 
times — pressed hard for hot words and radical measures, but 
he bit his lips, to use his own language, and kept quiet, jotting 
down notes on scraps of paper and stowing tliom in his higli 



58 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

hat — the handy receptacle for items to which he desired to 
have ready access. Some of these fugitive notes have been 
preserved, and they show with what keen and merciless logic 
he had gone to the bottom of the subject — passing the whole 
question through his silent thought, as though it were a case 
to be stated and argued. When at last he spoke his word, the 
whole man was in it, and the issue and the leader were alike 
disclosed. 

Such was the mood in which Lincoln, now forty-five and in 
the prime of his powers, stood up to refute the dogma of Doug- 
las and to challenge its champion. By a kind of instinct men 
recognized the new leader, and made way for him, though at 
the time there was no organized party, but only a few friends, 
to urge him forward. Just when he resolved to try again for 
office is not known; but it must be kept in mind that while 
Lincoln was a politician, wary, discreet, and shrewd, he was 
never a professional politician.^ That is, he did not live by 
holding office, but by the arduous labors of the law, and he re- 
turned to politics only at the call of a crisis — goaded also, it 
seems, by his ambitious little wife, who had been most un- 
happy during his subsidence. If he was a master of all the 
arts of politics, he brought them to the service of a great 
human cause, his very jealousy of Douglas serving the better 
to point his logic with tips of fire. 

Early in October Senator Douglas delivered a speech in 
the State House at Springfield, during the week of the State 
Fair, to which, on the following day, in the same hall to no 
smaller audience, Lincoln addressed a reply. The occasion, 
notable in many ways, was in fact the beginning of a debate 
between the two men, memorable in the annals of the nation, 
which continued at intervals for five years. Douglas was at 

1 Perhaps this fact, though noted by some of his biographers, has 
not been sufficiently emphasized. — American Commonwealth, by James 
Bryee, Vol TI, p. 68. Of the $200 contributed by his friends for his use 
in the canvass of 1846, he returned $199.90 unused. — Abraham Lincoln, 
by G. H. Putman, p. 16 (1909). In later years, besides contributing to 
the campaign fund, often to his own financial hurt, his friends contrib- 
uted to his expenses. — Abraham Lincoln, by Herudon and Weik, Vol. 
II, p. 71. 



'^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD" 59 

this time the most striking figure in the public eye — the 
most popular leader since Henry Clay — and in view of the 
estrangement of a large part of his constituency, he put forth 
all his powers of persuasion. He defended the Nebraska Bill 
by appeal to his panacea of " popular sovereignty," which, 
he said, only sought to establish in the Territories a policy 
already existing in the States. Why, he asked, should not 
the people of the Territories have the right to form and reg- 
ulate their domestic institutions in their own way? Moving 
from their old homes to new ones did not incapacitate them 
for self-government. If the citizens of a Territory decided 
by vote to admit slaves as property, no State had a right to 
interfere. After this manner he argued, using all the arts 
at his command, and in ordinary times his eloquence would 
have been conclusive ; but he had reckoned by the wrong star. 
His political compass, never very steady, had been deflected, 
perhaps unawares, by the subtle attraction of personal and 
partisan interest. His fallacy lay in the assumption that 
property in slaves did not differ from other kinds of prop- 
erty; and that the nation could deal with an historic evil by 
evasion. None the less his speech, delivered with great vital- 
ity and charm, swayed men by its blend of plausibility and 
power. 

It was therefore upon no ordinary occasion that Lincoln 
found himself pitted against his old adversary — his rival on 
many occasions and for many things. Much interest attached 
to his reply, not only from the fact that he was crossing 
swords with a famous debater, but because he was a candi- 
date against James Shields — his old dueling antagonist — 
for the Senate; and for the further reason that such a dis- 
cussion involved, necessarily, a survey of slavery in all its 
phases. While he was known to be a Whig of anti-slavery 
leanings, up to this time there had been no demand that he 
declare himself on that question as a national political issue. 
He had now to define his position, and he did not hesitate to 
tell the plain truth, so far at least as the public mind was 
ready for the whole truth; and the telling of it made his 
speech one of the imperishable utterances of that critical 



60 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

period, if not of our whole history. When he had finished 
men of all parties realized that a new leader had appeared, 
the equal of Douglas in debate, calm, strong, and fearless, 
with a sure grasp of the problem — a man of genius ablaze 
with passion. 

For four hours the circuit-riding lawyer unfolded and 
described the great issue with a mastery of facts, a logical 
strategy, and a penetration of insight that astonished even 
his friends. Evidence of careful study was apparent in the 
compactness of his thought and the lucidity of his style, and 
there was a total absence of the story-telling, of the grotesque 
humor, which had marred his earlier efforts. There were oc- 
casional playful passages, keen logical thrusts and bright 
metaphorical sallies, but as a whole the speech was charged 
with deep feeling, the speaker becoming at times intense and 
solemnly prophetic as the far-reaching nature of the issue was 
unveiled. Unlike the Abolition orators, he did not recite the 
cruelties of slavery, but held himself to the legal aspects of 
the question, arraigning Douglas and his party for violating 
the pledge of the Compromise, and for opening the way for the 
extension of slavery into new territory. While he did not plead 
for the abolition of slavery, he had none of the spirit of conces- 
sion to property interests that had ruined Webster, and he 
spoke as one to whom the moral issue was vividly alive. Restrict 
slavery, he argued, and time would work its abolition by 
natural process. For the pet dogma of Douglas he had a 
profound scorn, and his epigrams pierced it like flashes of 
lightning. He turned it over and over, inside and out, tear- 
ing off its mask and exhibiting it in such a light that no one 
could fail to see the deception embodied in it. No political dog- 
ma ever received a more merciless exposure, while the Senator 
himself sat on a front bench, not twelve feet away, intently 
listening. There were warm, but for the most part good- 
humored passages between them as the afternoon ran along. 
Lincoln kept his temper, even under the most provoking 
taunts, and his readiness and ease of retort delighted the 
immense audience. It was a great triumph, and thunders of 
applause greeted him : but what impressed men was the gran- 



' ' THE GENIUS OF DISCORD ' ' 61 

itic solidity of his argument, made luminous by a passionate 
earnestness all the more effective for its restraint. One who 
was present has left this picture of the orator: 

It was a warmish day in early October, and Mr. Lincoln 
was in his shirt sleeves when he stepped on the platform. 
I observed that, although awkward, he was not in the least 
embarrassed. He began in a slow and hesitating manner, 
but without any mistakes of language, dates, or facts. It 
was evident that he had mastered his subject, that he knew 
what he was going to say, and that he knew he was right. 
He had a thin, high-pitched, falsetto voice of much carry- 
ing power, and could be heard a long distance in spite of 
the bustle and tumult of the crowd. He had the accent 
and pronunciation peculiar to his native State, Kentucky. 
Gradually he warmed up with his subject, his angularity 
disappeared, and he passed into that attitude of uncon- 
scious majesty that is so conspicuous in Saint-Gaudens's 
statue at the entrance of Lincoln Park in Chicago. . . . 
Progressing with his theme, his words began to come faster 
and his face to light up with the rays of genius and his 
body to move in unison with his thoughts. His gestures 
were made with his body and head rather than with his 
arms. Thej' were the natural expression of the man, and 
so perfectly adapted to what he was saying that anything 
different would have been quite inconceivable. Sometimes 
his manner was very impassioned, and he seemed trans- 
figured with his subject. Perspiration would stream down 
his face, and each particular hair would stand on end. . . . 
In such transfigured moments as these he was the type of 
the Hebrew prophet. 

I heard the whole speech. It was superior to Webster's 
reply to Ilayne, because its theme is loftier and its scope 
wider. . . . I think also that Lincoln's speech is the superior 
of the two as an example of English style. It lacks some- 
thing of the smooth, compulsive flow which takes the in- 
tellect captive in the Websterian diction, but it excels in 
the simplicity, directness, and lucidity which appeal both 
to the intellect and to the heart. The speech made so pro- 
found an impression on me that I feel under its spell to 
this day.^ 

"When Lincoln closed, Owen Lovejoy, the leader of the Aboli- 
tionists — then holding a convention in the city — announced 
1 Lincoln in 1854, by Horace White, pp. 9-11 (1908). 



62 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

a meeting in the same place that evening of all the " friends 
of liberty," with a view to organizing the Republican party 
in Illinois, as it had already been organized in Wisconsin 
and Ohio. The scheme was to induce Lincoln to address 
them, and thus publicly to commit him as of their faith. But 
the astute Herndon, though in their counsels and as radical 
as any of them, was more of a politician, and knew the dan- 
ger to Lincoln of consorting just then with Abolitionists. So 
he hunted up his partner and said : "Go home at once ! 
Take Bob with you and drive somewhere in the country, and 
stay till this thing is over. ' ' Lincoln, always alert and politic, 
did take Bob in his buggy and drove to Tazewell County, 
where Judge Davis was holding court. Thus he escaped the 
dilemma, since either joining, or refusing to join, the Abo- 
litionists would have been perilous in view of the approach- 
ing contest for the Senatorship. 

Herndon, however, had difficulty in explaining to some of 
his fellow radicals why his partner had such urgent " busi- 
ness " in Tazewell County. Among these was Mr. Z. East- 
man, editor of the Western Citizen — an Abolitionist paper 

— who remained for some time uncertain as to the real po- 
sition of Lincoln on the slavery question.^ But Owen Love- 
joy and Ichabod Codding — two ministers with hearts aflame 

— were so sure of Lincoln that they put his name on a list 
of members of a Republican State Committee without con- 
sulting him. Some time later Lincoln received a notice from 

1 Later Mr. Eastman visited Springfield and had an interview with 
Herndon — the mediator between Lincoln and the radicals — in order to 
assure himself and his friends as to Lincoln's real views. He reports 
Herndon as saying : ' ' Lincoln has been an attentive reader of your paper 
for years; he believes in the Declaration of Independence, and. . .is well 
posted. That he might get all sides of the question, I take Garrison 's 
Liberator, and he takes the National Era, and the Western Citizen. 
Although he does not say much, you may depend on it, Mr. Lincoln is 
all right; when it becomes necessary, he will speak so that he will be 
understood." At the Bloomington convention. May 29, 1856, he did 
speak in no uncertain sound. "After that," adds Mr. Eastman, "there 
was no longer any opposition to Lincoln from the most radical of the 
Abolitionists." — "Anti-Slavery Agitation in Illinois," in Blanchard's 
History of Illinois, p. 671 (Old Edition). 



^^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD'' 63 

Codding to attend a meeting of the committee, and re- 
plied by asking why his name had been used without his 
consent.^ He was anxious, however, that his radical friends 
should understand his position, which was that when he re- 
fused to go faster than a certain pace it was with a view to 
final victory, not to surrender. From first to last he was for 
the ultimate extinction of slavery, and he waited only for 
means. What reply Codding made, if any, is not known; 
but we know that Lovejoy, when elected to the Legislature, 
voted for Lincoln for Senator. 

Twelve days after the encounter during the State Fair the 
two rivals met in joint debate at Peoria, where Douglas spoke 
for more than three hours in presenting his side of the case. 
He followed the outline of his Springfield address, ringing 
the changes on ' ' popular sovereignty, ' ' and approaching dan- 
gerously near to bathos when at the close, as a bait for Whig 
votes, he pictured himself as standing beside the death-bed 
of Webster and receiving the patriotic mantle of that as- 
cending statesman. To those who recalled how he had fought 
that giant with all the weapons of partisan warfare, such an 
appeal must have been amusing. Those were the days when 
the interest of audiences was equal to the endurance of ora- 
tors, and when it came Lincoln's turn to be heard it was sup- 
per time. Whereupon he told the people that his argument 
would not be less lengthy, and asked them to repair to their 

1 In 1858, in the joint debate in Ottawa, Douglas read what pur- 
ported to be a resolution passed by this "Black Eepublican" con- 
vention of 1854, demanding the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, and 
with an air of triumph applied it as a blister to Lincoln, whose name 
was found on the list of committeemen. It turned out, however, that 
his friend C. H. Lanphier, of the State Eegister, who had furnished the 
information, had given him a resolution passed by a small convention 
in Kane County. The Springfield resolution contained no such demand. 
Lincoln, who found out the truth and applied the blister to Douglas at 
Freeport, always believed that Mr. Lanphier had substituted the bogus 
resolution to help T. L. Harris in his race for Congress against Richard 
Yates, and had forgotten the circumstance. It is not necessary to charge 
Mr. Lanphier with bad faith in this instance. Nor was Douglas a party 
to the trick, though, as the sequel showed, he was a victim of it. — Lin- 
coln-Douglas Debates, pp. 65-73, 87-93 (1860). 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



provision baskets and return at seven, announcing that Sen- 
ator Douglas was to reply. After a scene which resembled a 
picnic, the audience re-assembled, and he repeated the sub- 
stance of his Springfield effort, but in an improved form, 
both as to compactness of argument and austerity of style. 
In later years he regarded his Peoria address as in some, re- 
spects the ablest he had ever made, and since he wrote it out 
— entirely from memory, for he did not use notes — and 
published it in successive numbers of the Sangamon Journal, 
it can be read to this day. While it contained a few of the 
catch phrases which in his later speeches became bywords of 
popular use, it was by far the most clear-cut and masterly 
forensic utterance of that year, if not of the whole slavery 
debate. 

Many elements entered into the speech to make it notable, 
one of which was the spirit of sympathy and justice shown 
towards the people of the South, against whom Lincoln had 
no unkindly feeling. Long usage and interest, he knew, had 
influenced their judgment, just as like usage and interest 
would have influenced the judgment of the people of the North. 
He did not hold them solely responsible for slavery, nor did he 
suggest any plan whereby they might rid themselves of it, 
but he was emphatic in his belief that, instead of becoming 
aggressive for its extension, they should by this time have 
devised some system of gradual emancipation. Equally em- 
phatic was his plea for the humanity of the negro, for proof 
of which he appealed to the Southern people themselves, many 
of whom were restive under slavery and so tender-hearted 
that they must needs employ others to manage their slaves. 
If he was too politic to push this point to indiscreet length, 
he left no doubt as to his feeling that slavery was morally 
wrong, both to master and man, as well as to the nation. In- 
deed, just because it was a national sin — in which North and 
South were involved in a common historic guilt — the whole 
Union was bound to protect the new Territories from infec- 
tion by it. New Territories were held in national trust, not 
merely for the first settlers who might wish to carry slavery 
with them, but for the millions who would eventually settle or 



''THE GENIUS OF DISCORD" 65 

be born there. Unsuited by climate and soil for slave-labor 
— which economic necessity had segregated to the South — 
those broad expanses must be kept as an asylum for the poor 
white people who wished to find homes where their labor 
would not be degraded by contact with slavery. The Nebraska 
Bill, so far from being a Union-saving measure, had already 
filled the nation with vehement antagonism which would only 
be intensified by further attempts to extend slavery. Actual 
events, then transpiring in Kansas, were heralds of civil strife, 
and with the abandonment of the spirit of mutual concession 
and compromise there was no hope of peace. He therefore 
urged that the Missouri Compromise be restored as a basis 
of negotiation between the sections. The speech was states- 
manlike in its scope and grasp, incisive but dignified in lan- 
guage, though weakened somewhat at the close by too much 
attention to the quibbles of Douglas. As this was the first 
elaborate survey of the question by Lincoln that has come 
down to us, a few passages may illustrate its spirit and style : 

Before proceeding let me say that I think I have no preju- 
dice against the Southern people. They are just what we 
would be in their situation. If slaverj^ did not now exist 
among them, they would not introduce it. If it did now 
exist among us, we should not instantly give it up. This 
I believe of the masses North and South. Doubtless there 
are individuals on both sides who would not hold slaves un- 
der any circumstances, and others who would gladly in- 
troduce slavery anew if it were out of existence. We know 
that some Southern men do free their slaves, go North and 
become tip-top Abolitionists, while some Northern ones go 
South and become most cruel slave-masters. 

When the Southern people tell us that they are no more 
responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I ac- 
knowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution 
exists and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any 
satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the 
same. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I 
should not know how to do myself. // all eartJily power 
were given me I should not know tvJiat to do ivith the ex- 
isting institution. My first impulse would be to free all 
the slaves and send them to Liberia, to their own native 
land. But a moment's reflection would convince me that 
whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be 



66 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible. 
. . . But all tliis, to my judgment, furnishes no more ex- 
cuse for permitting slavery to go into our own free terri- 
tory than it would for reviving the African slave trade 
by law. 

Equal justice to the South, it is said, requires us to con- 
sent to the extension of slavery to new Territories. That 
is to say, inasmuch as you do not object to my taking my 
hog to Nebraska, therefore I must not object to you taking 
your slave. Now, I admit that this is perfectly logical, if 
there is no difference between hogs and negroes. But 
while you thus require me to deny the humanity of the 
negro, I wish to ask whether you of the South, yourselves, 
have ever been willing to do as much? . . . The great 
majority, South as well as North, have human sympathies, 
of which they can no more divest themselves than they can 
of their sensibility to physical pain. These sympathies in 
the bosoms of the Southern people manifest, in many ways, 
their sense of the wrong of slavery, and their consciousness 
that, after all, there is humanity in the negro. . . . And 
now why will you ask us to deny the humanity of the negro, 
and estimate him as only the equal of a hog? 

The doctrine of self-government is right, — absolutely 
and eternally right, — but it has no just application as 
here attempted. . . . But if the negro is a man, is it not 
to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say 
that he too shall not govern himself ? Wlien the white man 
governs himself that is self-government; but when he gov- 
erns himself and also governs another man, that is more 
than self-government — that is despotism. . . . No man is 
good, enough to govern another man without that other 
man's consent. I say this is the leading principle, the 
sheet-anchor, of American republicanism. 

But Nebraska is urged as a great Union-saving measure. 
Well, I too go for saving the Union. Much as I hate slavery, 
I would consent to the extension of it rather than see the 
Union dissolved, just as I would consent to any great evil 
to avoid a greater one. But when I go to Union-saving, I 
must believe, at least, that the means I employ must have 
some adaptation to the end. To my mind, Nebraska has 
no such adaptation. ' ' It hath no relish of salvation in it. ' ' 
It is an aggravation, rather, of the only thing which ever 
endangers the Union. When it came upon us, all was 
peace and quiet. The nation was looking to the forming of 
new bonds of union, and a long course of peace and pros- 
perity seemed to lie before us. 



'^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD >^ 67 

In this state of affairs the Genius of Discord himself 
could hardly have invented a way of again setting us by 
the ears but by turning back and destroying the peace 
measures of the past. The counsels of that Genius seem 
to have prevailed. The Missouri Compromise was repealed ; 
and here we are in the midst of a new slavery agitation, 
such, I think, as we have never seen before. . . . The 
Missouri Compromise ought to be restored. For the peace 
of the Union, it ought to be restored. ... If by any 
means we omit to do this, what follows? Slavery may or 
may not be established in Nebraska. But whether it be or 
not, we shall have repudiated — discarded from the coun- 
cils of the nation — the spirit of compromise; for who, 
after this, will ever trust in a national compromise? The 
spirit of mutual concession — that spirit which first gave 
us the Constitution, and which has thrice saved the Union 
— we shall have strangled and cast from us forever. 

And what shall we have in lieu of it ? The South flushed 
with triumph and tempted to excess; the North betrayed 
as they believe, brooding on wrong and burning for re- 
venge. One side will provoke, the other resent. One will 
taunt, the other defy; one aggresses, the other retaliates. 
Already a few in the North defy all constitutional re- 
straints, resist the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, and 
even menace the institution of slavery in the States where 
it exists. Already a few in the South claim the constitu- 
tional right to take and hold slaves in the free States — 
demand the re\dval of the slave-trade. . . . But restore 
the Compromise, what then? We thereby restore the na- 
tional faith, the national confidence, the national feeling of 
brotherhood. We thereby reinstate the spirit of conces- 
sion and compromise, that spirit which has never failed us 
in past perils, and which may be safely trusted for all the 
future. 

The South ought to join in doing this. The peace of the 
nation is as dear to them as to us. The memories of the past 
and hopes of the future, they share as largely as we. It 
would be on their part a great act — great in its spirit, and 
great in its effect. It would be worth to the nation a hundred 
years' purchase of peace and prosperity. And what of 
sacrifice would they make? They only surrender to us 
what they gave us for a consideration long, long ago ; what 
they have not now asked for, struggled or cared for ; tvhat 
has been thrust upon them, not less to their astonishment 
than to ours. . . . Our republican robe is soiled and trail- 
ed in the dust. Let us purify it. Let us turn and wash it 



68 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

white in the spirit, if not the blood, of the Revolution, Let 
us turn slavery from its claims of "moral right" back upon 
its existing legal right of "necessity." Let us return it to 
the position our fathers gave it, and there let it rest in 
peace. . . . Let North and South — let all Americans — 
let all lovers of liberty everywhere join in the great and 
good work. If we do this, we shall not only have saved the 
Union, but we shall have so saved it as to make and to keep 
it forever worthy of the saving. 

So amazed was Douglas at the skill and power of his opponent 
that he is reported to have said to Lincoln, flatteringly : ' ' You 
are giving me more trouble in debate than all the United States 
Senate ; let us both stop and go home. " ^ To this Lincoln, 

1 This incident, known as the "Peoria Truce," has long been in dis- 
pute among the biographers of Lincoln and Douglas. "Aside from the 
palpable improbability of this 'Peoria Truce'," writes Prof. Johnson, 
"it should be noted that Lincoln accepted an invitation to speak at 
Lacon next day, without so much as referring to this agreement. ' ' — 
Stephen A. Dauglas, p. 266. But in this he is manifestly in error, as 
there is now ample proof that Lincoln cancelled the Lacon engagement. 
The following report of a conversation between Mr. Gowdy and Senator 
Douglas, for which I am indebted to Mr. Horace White, is in point: 

-.c T. ,, ^, . New York, Dec. 7, 1908. 

My Dear Mr. White: 

In 1891, in his office in Chicago, Mr. Gowdy told me that Judge 
Douglas spent the night with him at his house preceding the first day of 
his debate vsdth Mr. Lincoln; that after the evening meal Judge Douglas 
exhibited considerable restlessness, pacing back and forth upon the 
floor of the room evidently with mental preoccupation. The attitude of 
Judge Douglas was so unusual that Mr. Gowdy felt impelled to address 
him and said: "Judge Douglas, you appear to be ill at ease and under 
some mental agitation; it cannot be that you have any anxiety with 
reference to the outcome of the debate you are to have with Lincoln; 
you cannot have any doubt of your ability to dispose of him ! ' ' 

Whereupon Judge Douglas, stopping abruptly, turned to Mr. Gowdy 
and said with great emphasis: "Yes, I am troubled, deeply troubled, 
over the progress and outcome of this debate. I have known Lincoln 
for many years and have continually met him in debate. I regard him as 
the most difficult and dangerous opponent that I have ever met, and I have 
serious misgivings as to what may be the result of this joint debate." 
These in substance, and almost in exact phraseology, are the words re- 
peated to me by Mr. Gowdy. Faithfully yours, 

Francis Lynde Stetson. 

If we assume, adds Mr. White, that this happened at Peoria in 



"THE GENIU S OF DISCORD ^^ 69 

always gullible through his feelings and unable to refuse a 
polite request, agreed, to the undisguised astonishment of his 
friends. The next day they went to the town of Lacon where 
they were announced for speeches, but Douglas declined to 
speak on the ground of hoarseness, and Lincoln refused to take 
advantage of ' ' Judge Douglas 's indisposition. ' ' Lincoln went 
directly home where he was met by a company of friends — 
including Herndon, William Jayne, Ben. F. Irving, William 
Butler, and others — who chided him for being so susceptible 
to palaver. He afterwards said to Herndon, " It 's a fortunate 
thing I wasn't born a woman, for I cannot refuse anything, it 
seems. ' ' Douglas, instead of going home, stopped at Princeton, 
where he collided in debate with Owen Lovejoy; and when 
afterwards charged with a breach of agreement, he explained 
that Lovejoy had "bantered and badgered" him until he had 
to speak in self-defense. But the explanation did not satisfy 
Lincoln, and his opinion of Douglas, never very high, dropped 
several degrees. Indeed, the one injustice of which Lincoln 
was capable was injustice to Douglas, who, however, did not 
fail upon occasion to recognize the worth of his opponent. 

As a result of the election the ' ' Anti-Nebraska men ' ' had a 
majority in the Legislature, and Lincoln had so planned his 
meetings with Douglas as to make himself an inevitable candi- 
date for the Senate. He himself had been nominated for the 
Legislature — against the wishes of liis wife, who was dream- 
ing of higher honors — by the Whigs and also by the Know- 
Nothing party, a committee of whom waited upon him to assure 
him of their support. Their interview was soon ended. * ' Who 
are the native Americans?" asked Lincoln pointedly. "Do 
they not wear the breech-clout and carry the tomahawk? We 
pushed them from their homes and now turn upon othera not 

October, 1854, all the requirements of the incident are fulfilled, because 
Mr. Gowdy resided at Peoria at that time. Nor was there any subse- 
quent joint debate between the two men at or near Mr. Gowdy 's resi- 
dence. While the letter does not allude to the "truce," it does show 
Douglas's state of mind in reference to Lincoln's equipment for the 
debate in 1854 and his apprehension as to the result. No doubt the 
state of the public mind also had something to do with Douglas's pro- 
posal to hush the debate. 



70 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

fortunate enough to come over here so early as we or our fore- 
fathers. Gentlemen of the committee your party is wrong in 
principle." He then told a story of an Irishman who said 
that he wanted to be born in this country, but his mother would 
not let him, and the delegation departed.^ In spite of this re- 
jection of Know-Nothing support he was elected by a large 
majority, with Judge Logan his former partner, to represent 
Sangamon County. Skill, tact, and political capacity were his 
in rare degree, and he at once set to work to win the Senator- 
ship. During the anxious interval between the election and the 
assembling of the Legislature "he slept with one eye open," as 
Herndon puts it, watching the scene and planning for the 
contest. 

Those who imagine that Lincoln waited for honors to be 
thrust upon him do not know the man whom Herndon, his 
partner, knew. He not only resigned from the Legislature in 
order to enter the race for the Senate, but wrote letters to the 
members whom he personally knew, soliciting their votes. Oth- 
ers he sought to reach through the influence of friends, espe- 
cially E. B. "Washburne, Jacob Harding, and Joseph Gillespie. 
The "Anti-Nebraska" majority was not only small but hetero- 
geneous and discordant, and the result was uncertain. Doug- 
las was moving heaven and earth to re-elect Shields who had 
voted for the Nebraska Bill, and some of the Anti-Nebraska 
men voted for Shields on the ground of personal friendship. 
Governor Joel A. Matteson — non-committal on the issue — 
was also a candidate, and drew others away. On a rainy day 
the Democrats, by a secret understanding, had elected one of 
their number to succeed Lincoln, and that made the tangle 
more intricate. Still, Lincoln might have won the prize but 
for the obstinacy of three insurgent Democrats — John M. 
Palmer, Norman Judd, and B. C. Cook — who would on no 
account vote for a Whig. Steadfastly they voted for Lyman 
Trumbull, who was a Democrat on every subject but the 
slavery issue. On the tenth ballot, amidst great excitement ^ 

1 Iowa Historical Secords for 1896, p. 497. 

2 For a description of tlie scene and the details of the balloting, see 
LUicoln in 1854, by Horace White, pp. 15-19 (1908). 



^^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD >^ 71 

and after a formidable show of strength, Lincoln, rather than 
see a Nebraska man elected, asked his friends to support Trum- 
bull. They did so — Judge Logan shedding ' ' natural tears ' ' as 
he transferred his vote — and Trumbull was elected. As for 
the Democrats, they were doubly chagrined that Trumbull, 
whom they regarded as an arch traitor, should be made Sen- 
ator, and that Palmer, Judd, and Cook should carry off the 
prize. Writing to E. B. Washburne the day after the election, 
Lincoln said : 

I regret my defeat moderately, but am not nervous about it. 
I could have headed off every combination and been elected 
had it not been for Matteson 's double game — and his de- 
feat now gives me more pleasure than my own gives me 
pain. On the whole, it is perhaps as well for our general 
cause that Trumbull is elected. The Nebraska men confess 
that they hate it worse than anything that could have hap- 
pened. It is a great consolation to see them worse whipped 
than I am. 

Ill 

In the meantime — that is, since the joint debates between Lin- 
coln and Douglas — Lovejoy, Codding, Herndon and others, 
had been working to bring about a more compact and cohesive 
fusion of the anti-slavery forces. They had a clear view of 
what was needed, but the state of sentiment in the central and 
southern counties was such that they were compelled to move 
with caution, feeling their way. All recognized Lincoln as the 
leader, by virtue of his genius and power, but he moved too 
slow for some and too fast for others, while holding himself 
somewhat aloof. In this way Herndon was placed in a posi- 
tion as difficult as it was important, where he had to assure 
impatient and impetuous radicals that Lincoln was sound in 
the faith, without compromising him with others to whom the 
word Abolitionist was the most hateful word in the language. 
Such a position required all his tact, restraint, and cunning, 
and it is but just that the nature and value of his services be 
recorded. 

He was, besides, a voluminous letter writer, corresponding 



72 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

with Garrison, Phillips, Giddings, and other leaders in the 
East, but most frequently with Theodore Parker, of Boston — 
his ideal theologian, reformer, and orator. For years he had 
been an admirer of Parker, reading all his sermons and ad- 
dresses, some of which he induced Lincoln to read — particular- 
ly the "Discourse Occasioned by the Death of Daniel Web- 
ster, ' ' which Lincoln thought was too severe on Webster. The 
eloquence of Parker was of a kind that appealed to Herndon 
— vehement and redundant with frequent purple patches, but 
bold, fearless, earnest, and vivid ; for the pressure of many activ- 
ities gave him little time to polish his sentences. This style 
was in part deliberate with Parker, especially at this period, 
with the intent to awaken the people. Wlien the Nebraska 
Bill passed, and even before it passed, the pulpit of Music Hall 
became a sounding board for indignation, as before it had been 
for the protest against the Fugitive Slave Law, and his voice 
had no uncertain ring. Whereupon the western lawyer was 
moved to write to the great preacher, expressing his hearty 
sympathy, asking for books to read, and telling of the way the 
wind was blowing in the West. His first two letters were after 
this manner : 

Springfield, 111., May 13, 1854. 
Mr, Parker. 

Sir : — I wrote to you once when I first became acquainted 
with your writings. I then had but a few of them, I now 
have them all. My attachment to the sentiments is stronger. 
I may say I am pulled to them. A few days since I wrote to 
Messrs. Crosby & Nichols to send me two books — one on 
spiritualism and the other on materialism — and knowing 
your tastes I preferred your judgment to others. I hope you 
will choose the two best books, and they will send. If you 
will send me a list of books of your taste, known for deep, 
rich benevolence, strong, energetic and massive language, I 
will send and get. I love this peculiar kind of eloquence. 
May I say you are my ideal — strong, direct, energetic, char- 
itable. 

Your attention to this will much oblige me. Yet, if too 
much trouble, do not do so. I did not in my letter to you 
give the proper direction — superscription — and for which 
I now offer apology. Yours truly, 

W. H. Herndon. 



^^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD^' 73 

Springfield, 111., June 11, 1854. 
Mr, Parker. 

Dear Sir : — 1 received yours of May 22nd and your ser- 
mon on "Old Age." I am under many obligations to you 
both for letter and sermon. Let me say that I do you and 
Emerson, or rather truth, some good here. I have made 
presents of your sermons and some of Emerson's rather than 
not have them read. I hope you will write out your New 
York speech and your late Boston sermon. The country 
needs moving with an eloquent and enthusiastic power. If 
you write out and publish please send me a copy. 

Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

What part Parker had in stirring up the people about slavery 
after the repeal of the Missouri Compromise is familiar to all. 
With astonishing assiduity he went through the Northern 
States, enlightening and rousing the people with ponderous 
lectures that were orations, sermons, arguments, historical dis- 
quisitions, harangues, all in one, winning for himself the title 
of "chaplain extraordinary of the anti-slavery movement." 
His lecturing field touched the Southern border, and once, at 
least, lapped over — at Wilmington, Delaware, where he was 
received wdth threats and sent away with a vote of thanks.^ 
Herndon wrote asking him to visit Springfield and deliver one 
or more lectures the following winter ; and receiving no reply 
he wrote again : 

Springfield, 111., Jan. 5, 1855. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir : — Some few weeks since I wrote you a short let- 
ter asking you therein some questions. The question asked 
was this : Can you come out here this winter and deliver us 
some lectures? We have a good hall and all conveniences. 
The letter has not been answered. It may never have 
reached you. ... I know you cannot afford to come out 
to deliver one or two lectures at any one place, but if you 
can get several places you can. . . . Please answer. 
Youi*s truly, W. H. Herndon. 

P. S. Our Legislature is now in session. Anti-Nebraska 
men are all elected — those who fill the offices of speaker, 
clerks, etc. — a perfectly clean sweep of slaveites and rum 
men. 



Theodare Parlcer, by 0. B. Frothiughain, pp. 376-440 (1874). 



74 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

But Parker was too much engaged to promise a visit, having 
become entangled with the courts as the result of an attempt 
to rescue a fugitive slave, named Anthony Burns — a kind of 
pastoral work which had been a feature of his ministry since 
1842.^ The story of the rendition of Burns, and of Parker's 
efforts to prevent it, would easily fill a book ; but it failed. The 
prisoner was marched out of Boston, over the spot where Gar- 
rison had been dragged "by gentlemen of property and stand- 
ing" in 1835, wliile multitudes looked on, sununoned by a 
placard written by Parker "to turn out and line the streets 
and look upon the shame and disgrace of Boston." Not for 
this, but "for obstructing, resisting, and opposing the execu- 
tion of the law," Judge B. R. Curtis — who afterwards op- 
posed the Dred Scott decision of Judge Taney — charged the 
grand jury to indict those who had offended. Indictments were 
found against Parker, PhiUips, T. W. Higginson, and four 
others, and the hearing was set for April 3, 1855. Hence the 
"trial" referred to by Parker in his brief reply to Herndon : 

Boston, Mass., Jan. 15, 1854. 
W. H. Herndon, Esq. 

Dear Sir : — Your former letter attended to in the note of 
the 7th inst. came to hand and was immediately answered ; 
but mine miscarried, I suppose. It would give me great 
pleasure to visit Springfield (and other towns in the "West), 
but I have no time. ]\Iy ' ' trial ' ' takes place in March, and I 
make no engagements after that, for who knows where I 
may be ! Unless we exterminate slavery there is no freedom 
possible. We are doing well in Massachusetts just now. 
Thanks to Illinois for her good heart. Yours truly, 

ThEO. P^\JIKER. 



1 Much of Parker's time was spent in such activities, brief refer- 
ences to which occur in his Journals. But for the whole story we must 
go to his sermons and letters, which fell like leaves from a tree. One 
picturesque memorial of these labors is a scrap-book, now in the Boston 
Public Library — "Memoranda of the Troubles Occasioned by the In- 
famous Fugitive Slave Law from March 15th, 1851, to February 19th, 
1856,"— half of which is made up of posters, evidently written by 
Parker himself, warning fugitives of danger and summoning their friends 
to the rescue. When he spoke on this subject his words took fire and 
blazed like sky-rockets. — Theodore Parker, by O. B. Frothingham (1874). 
Also Theodore Parker, Preacher and Beformer, by J. W. Chadwiek (1900). 



^^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD ^^ 75 

These letters — now to be interwoven with the present study — 
continued to pass to and fro at varying intervals until Decem- 
ber, 1859, when Parker broke down and became a wandering 
seeker after health. Excerpts from the letters of Parker ap- 
peared in his biography ^ by John Weiss in 1864, which is now 
out of print, but the letters of Herndon have never before been 
published. They have to do with the men, movements, and 
events, the hopes, fears, and dreams, of a critical and stormy 
period — the period, that is, of the rise of Lincoln, of his de- 
bates with Douglas, and of his election to the Presidency — and 
they let light behind the political and social scenes of those 
years, sometimes in a startling manner. Their characteriza- 
tions of men are definitive and apt ; their criticisms of leaders,, 
particularly of Douglas and Greeley, are sharp, often to the 
point of injustice ; while their prophecies of coming events are, 
at times, almost uncanny. Both men wrote with the freedom 
and abandon of private correspondence, without mincing 
words, and their letters, especially those of Herndon which are 
longer and more numerous, are valuable as revelations of them- 
selves and their period. It is here that we discover, as only 
letters can disclose, what manner of man Herndon was — his 
crudities and refinements, his indignations, his enthusiasms, 
his egotism and his self sacrifice, his love of books, of nature, 
and of man, his swift and vi^dd intellect, and his heart of fire. 
One who reads these letters feels that Lincoln was wise when 
he decided to "stick by Billy Herndon," no matter what his 
enemies said against him. 

Replying to the brief note from Parker about his trial, Hern- 
don wrote at once expressing sympathy and assurance of vic- 
tory, reporting at the same time the election of Trumbull to the 
Senate. He also enclosed a clipping from the Sangamon Jour- 
nal, a report of his valedictory speech as mayor of Springfield, 
from which it appears that he had been active in behalf of muni- 
cipal economy, while purchasing grounds for school buildings 
in each of the wards and enforcing a prohibitory ordinance 
against the dram-shops. He wrote : 

1 Life and Correspondence of Theodore FarJcer, by John "Weiss, in 
two volumes (1864). 



76 LINCOLN A ND HERNDQN 

Springfield, 111., Feb. 13, 1855. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I am sorry you cannot come out west and lec- 
ture for us. You have, however, a good excuse. Your 
trial comes on in March and I hope you will attend to it as 
you do to all things. Blast slavery if you can — aid free- 
dom to stand erect, and "v^ath the forces of nature floating 
everywhere man will yet evolve goodness and develop great- 
ness along the lines of time and in the realms of faith. I 
know nothing I desire more than [the] freedom and eleva- 
tion of my brother man. These can never be accomplished 
while wrong rules; tyranny or freedom must dominate. 
They are now struggling. I have no fears as to wliich will 
triumph. I know. 

Hope you will get good counsel and attorneys with your- 
self and go to trial and there have good reporters — make 
speeches and send out to the world for us young men to read 
and inhale — human rights drunk in. 

During the election here and before, I took the stump and 
did all I could for freedom — aided the press, wrote late 
and early.^ All I wish is, that I could do it over every No- 
vember of my life. I knew during the election that if the 
people would take their stand on their religiousness of soul 
that would be all right. They took that stand and Illinois 
stands redeemed. Douglas can no more control Illinois 
than a Hottentot chief can. We are free. When we can 
look one another in the face and talk on the question with- 
out evasion or "eye-dropping" you may know all is right. 
We are in that condition. I may not go as far as some, yet 
so far as I go I am fixed. 

You are aware that Judge Trumbull is now our U. S. 
Senator. He was elected in place of General J. Shields. He 
is anti-Nebraska; anti-Douglas. He was our Judge of Su- 
preme Court before whom I have often spoken in the capac- 
ity of lawyer. He is a good man, no demagogue, and a per- 
sonal enemy of Douglas. This is more than the press can tell 
you. Great thorn, rough and poisonous, in the heart of 
Douglas. My opinion — I suppose — that Trumbull has 
pledged himself to vote against the admission of all and 



1 Herndon was, as he here says, a prolific writer of editorials, espe- 
cially for the Sangamon Journal, edited by his friend, Simeon Francis. 
He quotes from some of them in his biogrMphy of Lincoln. (Vol. II, p. 
378.) Examples of his editorial work will be given later from those 
hitherto unpublished. Lincoln also used the papers in the same way, 
anonymously, though less frequently. 



' ' THE GENIUS OF DISCORJ) ' ' 77 

every Slave State and for repeal or modification of the 
Fugitive Slave Bill. 

Our Legislature has passed a Maine law — I am for it as 
you may suppose — to take effect if the people vote for it. 
I think they will. They will north and here, but Egypt — 
good gracious! Passed or about to pass a law to give the 
blacks their tax money to appropriate to schools, as our law 
does not allow blacks to come to school with whites. 

After your trial is over I hope you or others will publish 
in book form the speeches made for you and the evidence in 
your ease, or containing the whole case, and send out to the 
world. I have not two of your speeches or sermons made in 
New York, I think in New York, and would like to have them 
very much. One was published in the Times some time in 
March or April, 1854, and the other I have heard of. If you 
will send them I will pay you somehow or other. I am 
surprised at running this letter out, yet I had no time to 
alter. Yours respectfully, W. H. Herndon. 

Issues crowded fast, and with the passage by the Legislature 
of a Maine law to be submitted to popular vote the State was 
immediately com^ilsed by an exciting prohibition campaign. 
Pulpits thundered, women and children paraded, orators 
emitted blazing rhetoric — Abolitionists linking liquor with 
slavery as kindred crimes, and ''personal liberty" advocates 
identifying Prohibition hysteria vnih Abolition fanaticism — 
while politicians ran to cover. Lincoln — neither Prohibition- 
ist nor Abolitionist — held aloof, not wishing to divert atten- 
tion from the supreme question of the age; but Herndon 
plunged into the thick of the fight, writing and speaking with 
all the more zeal because liquor was his personal enemy — 
though it must be said that during his term as mayor he had 
been singularly abstemious. As he had predicted to Parker, 
the northern counties voted for the law and Egypt against it. 
No offices were at stake and there was not a full vote, but the 
Germans turned out to a man, and, it was charged, also to a 
woman, and killed Prohibition in Illinois for nearly a genera- 
tion.^ In the midst of the campaign Herndon wrote to Parker, 
sending him a Prohibition speech which has not been preserved : 

1 Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, edited by T. J. McCormaek, Vol. T, 
pp. 620-623 (1909). 



78 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Springfield, 111., April 12, 1855. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — Some few days since I sent you a small pam- 
phlet on Temperance. I herewith send you a little speech 
of mine. Put them by for the present and read at 
your leisure. I know your trial takes up your time. To 
expect otherwise would be foolish. Our State Register — 
slaveite, whiskey paper — attacked our prohibitory law and 
I was called on to defend. . . . The people around me 
would make me publish in pamphlet form. The editors 
published on their own accord. I never saw the proofs after 
original writing. Blunders you will excuse. I pray for 
your complete acquittal and justification, triumph, etc., in 
your trial. Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

Parker had spent much time in the preparation of his defense 
in the expectation of a serious affair, but there was no trial. 
His counsel moved that the indictment be quashed, and after 
a brief argument Judge Curtis pronounced that it be so, as 
defective. Not to be outdone, Parker elaborated and pub- 
lished his "Defense," and while it lost much of its popular 
effect by losing all its practical utility, it was a memorable plea 
for liberty and justice.^ It was, in fact, a history of slavery 
aggression in America, worked out with a fullness of historical 
and legal knowledge only surpassed by its genius for invective. 
No doubt the court foresaw this storm-cloud of eloquence and 
wished to avert it ; for in its published form Parker 's denun- 
ciation reached its height in handling the Curtis family for 
its connection with the subserviency of Boston to the Slave 
Power. Herndon, in writing to congratulate Parker, so in- 
terpreted the intention of the court : 

Springfield, 111., April 23, 1855. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir: — Let me congratulate you upon your escape 
from the inquisition of slavery. Every man is happy at the 
result — breathes a little easier. Let me say to you that it 
was not Curtis who quashed the indictment, but the King 
South. The South are not fools. They see which way the 
wind blows, and have done this out of fear. Fear and in- 
terest are some men 's patriotism, chivalry — all. 



The Trial of Theodore Parlcer, tcith the Defense (1855). 



'^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD ^^ 79 

I sent you some time since a small pamphlet on temper- 
ance — a small speech — a small leader in one of our dailies, 
and herewith I send another. I will trouble you no more. 
I did these things to let you know that so far as I could do 
good, I was doing it. 

This grand outrage on Kansas will ring in the ears of 
this dead nation yet. I think the North is yet to wake and 
breathe. Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

P. S.. Mr. Parker, if you see any expressions in those 
pieces which are yours in essence, remember, you impressed 
the hard steel upon a softer plate. 

IV 

Kansas was in the throes of ci\dl strife, and the shock was be- 
ing felt throughout the country, foreboding, as many feared, 
"the knell of the Union." Armed bands of ruffians were 
crossing the border from Missouri for the purpose of seizing 
the election machinery and through it forcing Kansas into 
slavery by fraud and violence, while immigrants from the 
North, sent forward by colonization societies, began to pour 
in with the design of making it a Free State. Some of the 
Missourians settled upon fertile and valuable lands, and others 
roved over the prairies, burning, shooting, and pillaging with 
impunity. The forces sent by President Pierce to restore 
order only served to augment the strife, since they were avow- 
edly active in behalf of slavery. Kansas was unsuited for 
slave-labor, as Webster had pointed out, and the struggle was 
for this reason futile, but partisan rancor egged on the con- 
flict. The South was excited and aggressive, and the senti- 
ment of the North was gathering to enter its protest at the 
ballot-box against what Sumner called ' ' the crime against Kan- 
sas." 

In his Peoria speech Lincoln had given a striking descrip- 
tion of the colliding elements, and then added a deep-toned 
prophetic forecast of blood and violence. With what keen eye 
he was watching the struggle, measuring its forces and fore- 
casting its results, may be seen in his letter to his friend Joshua 
Speed, of Kentucky — one of the most significant of all his 



80 LINCOLN A ND HEBNDON 

letters despite its tone of almost cynical hardness. Speed had 
said that sooner than yield his right to own slaves, especially 
at the bidding of those who were not themselves interested, he 
would see the Union dissolved, but he was equally positive that 
the men who had precipitated violence and fraud in Kansas 
ought to be hung. Lincoln replied — and he always wrote 
more confidentially to Speed than to any other man — that he 
did not question the legal right of his friend to own slaves, 
though both admitted the abstract wrong of it, and added : 

It is not fair for you to assume that I have no interest in a 
thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of 
making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how 
much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their 
feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitu- 
tion and the Union. . . . You say, if you were President, 
you would send an army and hang the leaders of the Mis- 
souri outrages upon the Kansas elections; still, if Kansas 
fairly votes herself a Slave State she must be admitted, or 
the Union must be dissolved. But how if she votes herself 
a Slave State unfairly, that is, by the very means for which 
you say you would hang men ? Must she still be admitted, 
or the Union dissolved? That will be the phase of the ques- 
tion when it first becomes a practical one. In your assump- 
tion that there may be a fair decision of the slavery question 
in Kansas, I plainly see that you and I would differ about 
the Nebraska law. I look upon that enactment not as a law, 
but as a violence from the beginning. It was conceived in 
violence, and is being executed by violence. . . . You say 
men ought to be hung for the way they are executing the 
law ; I say . . . it is being executed in the precise way 
which was intended from the first, else why does no Nebras- 
ka man express astonishment or condemnation ? . . . If , like 
Haman, they should hang upon the gallows of their own 
building, I shall not be among the mourners for their fate. 

As we have seen, the Republican party had been organized, in 
its first stages at least, in 1854, but Lincoln was not yet a mem- 
ber of it. Nor did he become a member of it until Herndon 
actually forced him into it in 1856. They err who say that he 
was a leader in the movement directly, since he was always dis- 
couraging anything that savored of haste. Indeed, when he 
wrote to Speed under date of August, 1855, he confessed him- 



''THE GENIUS OF DISCORD" 81 

self to be a man without a party, though still clinging bravely 
to the wreck of the old Whig ship. The letter is valuable in 
that it reveals not only his own hesitancy, but his clear vision 
of the situation in the South : 

You say that if Kansas fairly votes herself a Free State as a 
Christian you will rejoice at it. All decent slave-holders 
talk that way, and I do not doubt their candor. But they 
never vote that way. Although in private letter and con- 
versation you will express your preference that Kansas shall 
be free, you would vote for no man for Congress who would 
say the same thing publicly. No such man could be elected 
from any district in a Slave State. . . . The slave-breeders 
and slave-traders are a small, odious and detested class 
among you; and yet in politics they dictate the course of 
all of you, and are as completely your masters as you are 
the master of your own negroes. 

You inquire where I now stand. That is a disputed 
point. I think I am a Whig; but others say there are no 
Whigs, and that I am an Abolitionist. Wlien I was at Wash- 
ington, I voted for the Wilmot Proviso as good as forty-two 
times ; and I never heard of any one attempting to unwhig 
me for that. I now do no more than oppose the extension of 
slavery. I am not a Know-Nothing ; that is certain. How 
could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression 
of negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people ? 
Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rap- 
id. As a nation we began by declaring that "all men are 
created equal." We now practically read it "all men are 
created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings 
get control, it will read "all men are created equal except 
negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to 
this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they 
make no pretense of lo\ang liberty — to Russia, for instance, 
where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base 
alloy of hypocrisy. 

None the less, scouts were manoeuvering in advance, and Lin- 
coln surveyed their operations with solicitude, albeit from the 
rear, not wishing to run too far ahead of the slow, apathetie 
masses without whom no real advance could be made. Of 
what those daring and indefatigable scouts were doing Hem- 
don kept Parker informed, occasionally dipping his pen in fire 



82 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

the better to blister Douglas. With characteristic vividness 
and enthusiasm he wrote : 

Springfield, 111, Oct. 30, 1855. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir: — It has been some time since I wrote to you; 
and you can M^ell afford to be "pestered" once in a long 
while. This is especially so from your western friend. 

First: We in Illinois are now just commencing a sys- 
tematic organization of Republicanism, and hope to see it 
inaugurated into a vital, eternal, political power in the State, 
which shall cover us as nature wraps up her modest flower 
or gigantic mountain. In this part or central portion of the 
State we are backward, timid and cowardly The reason is 
this : Most of us are from the South and I among them, yet 
so far as the slavery question is concerned we are most em- 
phatically opposed to it, its aggressions, or its spread. An- 
other cause is, that our able politicians are waiting to see 
the reverse side and the obverse picture, and because they 
flinch or draw back the people are not disposed to move, but 
it strikes me there was or is no better time than last year or 
this; because I intuitively feel, if not see, that the people 
are ready and anxious to leap into an organization that has 
justice and equity wrought into vital activity. This is the 
scrupulous, timid fault of wary politicians who are seeking 
equilibrium, they know not where, and the people who are 
accustomed to be led and not to lead, do not want to go for- 
ward; and so between the cowardice of some and the want 
of confidence in others, this political rest or static power in 
the mass follows. I hope to see them dynamical, vital, ac- 
tive, soon. 

Mr. Douglas was here a few weeks since and addressed 
as in one of his speeches, known for power of a peculiar na- 
ture ; namely, energy, duplicity and dexterity, driven by an 
abandon fired by rum — in short, a low, base, hellish effort 
at renaissance. It may be seen in his face, that conscious 
ruin has seized him and like Milton's hero in Paradise Lost 
he will do all he can to regain his blissful seat. You can 
picture the sight. You may think I hate the man. I can 
say I do not ; yet I do loathe him, and I cannot help it. If 
I love man, his progress ; if I look upward and outward, and 
hope for man, let me ask you the question : How can I do 
otherwise ? Has he not tried to sell me and man, in the in- 
dividual and species, to this same Slave Power which I hate 
and yet fear ; and if this is so, how can I help my feelings ? 



^^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD'^ 83 

Mr. Douglas is generally followed by Lyman Trumbull, his 
equal in many particulars, but not in the low specialties. 
Mr. Lincoln sometimes follows. Illinois is the battle ground 
for the Slave Power and for the Republicans too. Here is to 
be the fight. Mr. Giddings was here soon after Mr. Doug- 
las, and spoke in the Metropolitan liall, yet he did not speak 
with eloquence and power. He spoke very calmly and 
truthfully, but for the crowd it was not what it ought to be. 
I suppose he was cramped, not knowing how to feel out for 
the sentiment of the mass. I may be mistaken, but I do 
candidly believe the speakers miss the mark by shooting too 
low, under the cross in the target, and therefore do not win. 
Excuse the Western figure. There is a great ground-swell, 
an under-current, a wave from the infinite, the older poli- 
ticians do not feel it seems to me. 

We had Henry Ward Beecher here a few nights since : 
he is a man. He spoke upon the progressive and conserva- 
tive man or age, and if I know what eloquence, not of the 
highest and grandest order, is, he certainly had it. He was 
intense in his passages of sympathy and energetic in his 
reprobation of conservative cowardice ; and as a general rule 
his views were correct, just and lofty, yet it seemed to me he 
hung fire — did not say all he felt. Is he not of your faith 
and is he not too cowardly to come out — speak out like a 
brave man? It seems to me so. He will do good. He 
looks a man and I suppose his Heaven-warrant does not de- 
ceive. The crowd was wrapped up in H. Ward Beecher. 
He is hopeful, somewhat ideal. 

As I wrote you once before, we got badly beaten in our 
temperance move, and the reason is that human rights 
float in the bubbles of whiskey which swim upon the fire 
surface. Though defeated we are not conquered. It is 
very hard to overcome interest, appetite, habit, and the low 
demagogue who rules the synod in the grocery. 

I am glad to see Sumner publishing the third volume of 
speeches. They are eloquent, chaste, classic. I admire Mr. 
Sumner very much : he is a man all over, inward and out- 
ward, from head to foot. I speak of him at a distance, for 
I am not personally acquainted with him. I see that Em- 
erson is publishing his English notes. They will be a rich 
treat to us young men ; they will be eloquent and grand, 
poetic, ideal. 

I sometime since got your two recent volumes of speeches, 
etc., and the one at Abingdon is a prophecy fulfilled. The 
Tribune is exactly where it was placed. Kane in that or an- 



84 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

other is placed where it was predicted. Slavery by judicial 
legerdemain is sought to be made national. Will it tri- 
umph? The spirit within says no. Has not slavery gone 
too far — done too much — been too imperious ? I think 
it has. Let it die and rot in the tropic heats ! 

"We had Mr. Millburn, the blind preacher, here last night 
and will have him again tonight: his subjects, "Young Am- 
erica, ' ' and ' ' The Rifle, Axe and Saddle Bags. ' ' He speaks 
handsomely, beautifully. Can you not come and see Illi- 
nois some time this winter and give us a lecture or so? 
Friend Greeley did well here. Beecher did well. Can you 
not come out? Yours, W. H. Herndon. 

Like so many men of his ardent and idealistic type, Herndon 
seems to have believed in the nobility of the human race as a 
whole and in the total depravity of many of its individual mem- 
bers. But, as one of his friends said, he was "violently all 
right." He lacked that judicial sense which discriminates be- 
tween varying shades of good and ill, so that all things ap- 
peared either white or black. That was not so bad as the moral 
blindness which confounds white and black; yet it involved 
some measure of injustice, and generally rubbed the fur the 
wrong way. But he had nerves in his intellect, red blood in 
his moral passion, and fire in his soul ; and in these respects he 
resembled Parker, who replied one month later : 

Boston, Mass., Nov. 30, 1855. 
Mr. Herndon. 

Dear Sir: — Your kind note of 30th ult. came to Boston 
when I was in the West and so I have had no moment to an- 
swer it until this and now only a brief minute. 

I intend next autumn, say October or November, to visit 
the farther part of the Western States, Wisconsin, Iowa, 
Minnesota, etc. I should like to speak at Springfield. I 
wish we had a dozen men like Beecher. What a noble fel- 
low he is — a live minister. A minister who believes in 
making men manly and thinks religion is noble life ! I take 
it the North will have two candidates in the next Presiden- 
tial election, one Republican, one Know-Nothing ; the latter 
will get the most votes but will be defeated. But good will 
be done — the "American Party" is bringing out men in 
the South who have been disfrancliised hitherto. They are 



^^THE GENIUS OF DISCORD'^ 85 

the "poor white:" they have no newspapers, no organiza- 
tion, no self-respect. The Know-Nothings enable them to 
meet and act together. By and by this Southern element 
will help us. I expect another violent slavery President 
with a strong opposition in the House and before long in the 
Senate. IMexico will fall into our hands even, I think, be- 
fore 1860. Then in 1860 comes the real struggle between*^ 
the North and South. Freedom and Slavery ! I think not^ 
before. 

I have just got my defense out. It makes an 8vo volume 
of 250 pages. Yours hastily but truly, 

Theo. Parker. 

By the time he replied Herndon had read the "Defense," 
which he pronounced a masterpiece, as he did nearly every- 
thing that Parker wrote. As usual his letter throbs with his 
hatred of slavery, but is touched with love for the people of the 
South, his kinsmen, many of whom he knew to be Abolitionists 
at heart, or at least opposed to slavery. He thinks it probable 
that the South will absorb Mexico after the Union is dissolved, 
not before. Both men are full of prophecies of distant calam- 
ity, while Lincoln and men of his type were looking at the near- 
er scene, content to take one step at a time. But many of their 
predictions were tragically fulfilled: 

Springfield, 111., Feb. 16, 1856. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir: — I received your favor some time since, and 
would have answered but was busy in our Supreme Court 
attending to business. I hardly think with you in respect 
to the action of the North. My opinion is, that the North 
will now endure no more of Southern insolence and wrong ; 
and further, I think I know the Southern blood, and from 
that knowledge I knoiv they will, when the fighting point 
comes, cringe and crawl away. They can bluster and swag- 
ger ; but there is an unboastf ul, serene calmness in Northern 
bravery which paralyzes their heated and inflated courage. 
I have been a boy, and have often quailed before this spirit. 
This is universal to all men, and the South are no exceptions 
to the universals of humanity. I am proud of my adopted 
section, for her philosophical, matheraatic courage, that 
knows no cold, no heat, but eternal justice. The North, 
thank the stars, is erect, that is, men of the North, showing 



86 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

they have not forgotten principles, the only thing that is 
permanent or beautiful ; all else rots in time. 

I think the action and courage exhibited in the election 
of Banks show which way we may now look for the true 
moral courage. I think the charm is shivered "like thin 
glass. ' ' The prestige of the South is gone, and I pray God 
never to return. Her institutions are wrong — ridiculously 
unjust. Heaven-defying; and if the recent lesson can teach 
her only justice to the North, and the rights of man, I will 
be more than pleased. Another illustration is the men of 
Lawrence ; their coolness, bravery, and a sense of justice, 
awed a drunken rabble incited by a drunken politician. 
The North are up. 

J I hate slavery: one word long years ago did it. My 
father was asked in my presence why he left Virginia, and 
then Kentucky. He answered : That ' ' my labor should 
never be degraded by competition with slave-labor." I 
must, however, confess that it, the hate, grows — develops 
as principles are understood, as duty and obligation to hu- 
manity are opened to me ; as my soul expands to its responsi- 
bilities. I once said to you that I did not go so far as some 
did. I move, not backward. Is there any safe, great ever- 
lasting position this side of principle ? Where is that point ? 
Shall it stop with class? Shall it like truth sheet the uni- 
verse of man? These are questions which stare a man in 
the face, 
v/ I love the South, and cannot help it; there is something 
open, manly, chivalrous to draw me. But I hope I can draw 
a line between an institution and men. From my own 
knowledge there are a great number of men in the South 
that silently pray for Northern success — dare not say it 
aloud. Not only the poor whites, but many others who are 
rich but do not and will not own slaves, are with us in feel- 
ing. / know this. I have heard them curse us Northern 
men most heartily when we would ' * cave in, ' ' as they called 
it. Let me say here, that in so saying, they would look 
around the room to see if any spies were looking or if any 
hired negro heard it. Slavery is the most terrible thing in 
the world. I say that I love the South, and wall never in- 
jure her. I love her men and cannot help it. I draw a line 
between her citizens and her institutions. 

"When I wrote you to come out here and lecture I did not 
know you were in Chicago, but learned so a few days after 
I wrote. I was really sorry when I received the news of 
your prior engagement. I hope you will come out in Oeto- 



'^THE GENI US OF DISCORD" 87 

ber or November, 1856, and talk to us. We, the citizens, in- 
tend to try to engage some of the best men to lecture here 
this next fall and winter. The feat was tried on an ortho- 
dox scale. You may know how it ended. 

Do you think that Mexico will fall into our hands about 
1860 ? I think not. ]\Iy reasons in short are — the North- 
ern couraere showed this winter throughout the Free States 
has rather taken the Southern men back, and they will not 
move in the matter till we forget our triumphs in our lethar- 
gy. The policy of the South will be for years fawning, 
flattering, corrupting, till her day comes again, and then 
"she will do her best." If this policy isn't pursued the 
Union will be dissolved, and a Southern Confederacy will 
be formed. Then the South may absorb Mexico, not this 
Union, so soon as 1860. However, our present energy and 
intensity may fuse away before 1860, and then you may be 
correct. I paid attention to what you said. 

Henry Ward Beecher is decidedly a new man, a new 
species of man. He is strong, vigorous, original, brave. 
He will do the world good yet. He is a new rose, fresh from 
the garden of the almighty forces. This age was fortunate 
in having so beautiful a present. He is a man — "a fresh 
minister. ' ' 

I received your "Defense" and have carefully read it; 
it is good ; it is didactic, but powerful ; it will live. It may 
say way down the ages, ' ' I still live, ' ' when it is yet fresh — 
not on a death-bed. Hope to see your work soon on "Re- 
ligious Development," — hope to see Emerson's "English 
Traits ' ' soon — comes slowly. W. H. Herndon. 

At heart, both Parker and Herndon were of womanly gentle- 
ness. Their hatred of hurtful errors and practical wrongs 
was kept at white heat by a genuine love of mankind, and for 
all their arraignments and castigations they had no malice or 
bitterness of spirit. They did not look on oppression, fraud, 
and misery as abstractions, to be contemplated with philosophic 
calmness. They saw living men, women, and children ex- 
posed, suffering, and degraded, and their hearts quivered with- 
in them. 



CHAPTER IV 

Herndon and Parker 
I 

When great questions come in little questions are crowded 
out, but they are sometimes unnecessarily slow in making 
their exit. As the Slave Power became more daring and 
insolent, opposition to it grew steadily stronger every day, 
and the various orders of anti-slavery advocates were drawn 
ever closer together. Old party ties were still clinging; but 
the liberal spirit of self-sacrifice for the sake of principle 
became daily more manifest, while the men of all parties — 
Whigs, Abolitionists, Liberty men, and even Democrats — 
showed themselves willing to surrender their old parties for 
one which should take the right kind of stand against the 
spread of slavery. Not otherwise could they hope for suc- 
cess in Illinois or for any great influence in the nation. 

At length the time seemed ripe for such a movement, and 
the preliminary step was taken at a gathering of Anti-Ne- 
braska editors, held at Decatur in February, 1856. Eleven 
delegates were present,^ among whom were Charles H. Ray 
of the Chicago Tribune, Paul Selby of the Jacksonville Jour- 
nal, W. J. Usrey of the Decatur Chronicle, and George Sny- 
der of the Chicago Staats-Zeitung; and they proceeded at 
once to the discussion of the principles upon which such an 
organization should be built. All agreed that the Slave States 
should be sustained in all the rights guaranteed to them by 
the Constitution, and in disclaiming any desire to interfere 
with slavery where it existed. With such admissions, they 

1 For a complete list of the editors who took part in this conference, 
See Moses's Illinois, Historical and Statistical, Vol. II, p. 598 (1889- 
1892). 



HERNDON AND PABKEB 89 

passed resolutions " in favor of the restoration of the Mis- 
souri Compromise, or in other words, that we will strive by 
all legal means to restore to Kansas and Nebraska a legal 
guarantee against slavery, of which they were deprived at 
the cost of the violation of the plighted faith of the nation; 
that we hold the settlement of the true relations of the gen- 
eral and State governments to slavery, and the restriction 
of slavery to its present authorized limits, as the paramount 
questions for consideration." They advocated, in addition, 
certain reforms in the administration of State affairs. 

Upon such a basis the new party was to stand, and to per- 
fect its organization a State convention was recommended, 
which should meet at Bloomington on May 29th, following. 
A State Central Committee of eleven was appointed to super- 
vise the interests of the party, W. H. Herndon to represent 
the Springfield district, with two for the State at large, Ira 
0. "Wilkinson and Gustave Koerner, then Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor. But Governor Koerner declined to serve, and in an 
open letter in the Belleville Advocate set forth his reasons, 
while declaring himself to be in harmony with the sentiment 
of the meeting regarding slavery and expressing the utmost 
abhorrence for the idea " that the Constitution of the freest 
country on earth carries slavery wherever its flag is un- 
furled." But, he continued: 

A mere opposition-party may please those who have set 
their eyes upon political preferment; it does not satisfy 
me. Such a party loses its power the moment it attains it. 
It may share in the emoluments of office, but can do no 
good. A new party should meet all the important political 
issues clearly and distinctly, without mental reservation. 
I could not co-operate with any party, which, while assert- 
ing the principle that all soil heretofore free should re- 
main free as long as it is a Territory, would not, at the 
same time affirmatively maintain that the Constitutional 
rights of the Southern States should never be interfered 
with; that all American citizens without distinction of 
birth and religion should be entitled " to rule America; " 
that the present naturalization laws should not be mod- 
ified in an illiberal spirit; that monopolies in every shape 
and form should be abolished; and that no wasteful ex- 



90 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

penditure, under whatever specious plea, should be en- 
couraged, either under the National or State government/ 

This letter, coming from one who spoke for an influential 
German element in the State, was widely quoted in the press, 
and found response. Governor Koerner was a Democrat, 
whose party had honored him in many ways, and a close 
friend of Douglas; but he opposed the Nebraska Bill on the 
ground that it " was a repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
and a sectional measure devoted to the interests of slavery." 
Although he saw no Constitutional way of dealing with 
slavery, he hated it, and could not bring himself to favor its 
extension into Territory heretofore free. Like many other 
Democrats, he hoped that the State and National conven- 
tions of his party would adopt platforms such as Anti-Ne- 
braska men could consistently stand upon. It was a vain 
hope; for the State convention, held at Springfield, on May 
1st, after nominating W. A. Richardson for Governor, passed 
strong Nebraska resolutions, and closed by commending Sen- 
ator Douglas for the " manly, daring, and undeviating fidel- 
ity with which he has always maintained State sovereignty 
and National honor." As a result, such men as "Wentworth, 
Judd, Palmer, Baker, Allen, and Koerner left the party. 
Meanwhile, letters were passing to and fro between Herndon 
and Parker, and we have this glimpse of the busy life of a 
great preacher, whose magnificent and ceaseless evangel 
brought him to an early grave : 

Boston, Mass., April 17, 1856. 
Mr. Herndon. 

My Dear Sir: — Your letters — the printed matter not 
less than the written — rejoiced me very much. I honor 
the noble spirit which breathes in them all. I didn't an- 
swer before for I had no time, and a hundred letters now 
lie before me not replied to. When I tell you that I have 
lectured 84 times since Nov. 1, and preached at home ev- 
ery Sunday but 2 when I was in Ohio, and never an old 
sermon, and have had six meetings a month at my own 
house, and have written more than 2000 letters, besides a 
variety of other work belonging to a minister and scholar. 



^Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, Vol. II, pp. 3-5 (1909). 



HERNDON AND PARKER 91 

you may judge that I must economize minutes and often 
neglect a much valued friend. So please excuse my de- 
lay in acknowledging your brave manly words, and be- 
lieve me, Faithfully yours, 

Theo. Parker. 

Praise from such a source was praise indeed to Herndon; 
and he hastened to reply, sending a clipping from the State 
Register and the Journal in which he was highly spoken of 
as a man, in view of the mention of his name as a possible 
candidate for Governor. He refused, however, to let his 
name be so used, preferring to fight as a private in the ranks, 
and not wishing to stand in the way of his partner : 

Springfield, 111., April 28, 1856. 
Mr. Parker. 

Friend : — I received yours a few days since. I had 
an idea that you were immersed in your pursuits. I had 
every reason to know this — to know it had been — was so 
now. I therefore excuse you with pleasure. However, I 
did not write to you — except collaterally — for compli- 
ments. I asked a question in my last two letters. The 
question was this : What time is the best for a man — 
" sucker " — to come East and see the world of matter 
and man? In your hurry you overlooked the substance 
and took up the incident. This I forgive. You are a pretty 
good judge of what, as a general rule, the young want : in 
my case a little mistaken — not much. 

Let us be candid. Your compliment did me no harm, 
but great good. I do love the approbation of good men — 
none others are sought for approbation. I hope to live to 
see the day when I can make slavery feel my influence. 
That shall be the one object of my life. It and myself are 
enemies. I am feeble : it is strong, yet I am right and it is 
wrong : nature — eternal truth — is with me : error is with 
it. Thus we stand. I am, I hope, half brave ; it is a coward. 
The end is seen. Do not understand me to say that I will 
live to see slavery abolished and that / will do it. I hope 
with others, to sow the elements whose immanent inherent 
power will do it after, probably long after, my death. 

I told you long since that the great fault of politicians 
was in not following the people, or in not speaking for prin- 
ciple — that the people were correct — their ground intu- 
itions were almost always correct ; and I will here detail a 
case. I, about two or three weeks since, made a speech in 



92 LINCOLN AND HEENDON 

Atlanta, Logan County — spoke for two hours and a 
quarter to a large crowded house — say 700 or 800 — 
filled with men, women — God bless the women — and 
young men and pretty girls ; and if I ever did a subject 
justice, in my poor way, I did it then and there. I took 
open, broad, deep antagonistic ground against slavery ev- 
erywhere on God's habitable globe. I really expected to 
be hissed, but my words were warm, intense, hot from an 
impassioned nature. The crowd saw it — saw my nerv- 
ous excitement — my thrill, listened to me and really 
respected me more, ten thousand times more, than a milk 
and cider affair. I never saw a more exultant crowd in 
my life. Well, I shall say no more for fear you do not 
know me. Now what was the result of all this. In a 
few days after landing at home I found a complimentary, 
most encouraging letter, asking my name for its use as 
a candidate for Governor. I herewith send you a small 
slip of paper. The first article is from our State Reg- 
ister, the paper which is my life-long enemy — political- 
ly — have no other that I know of; the second piece is 
from the Journal — the paper I used to write for — 
been kicked off, as it became Know-Nothing. I have 
nothing to do with it now, nor for months. There you 
can see what you see. I do not want office, even could I 
get it; but the illustration I want to make is, that poli- 
ticians want boldness — want manliness — want principle. 
When I say the letter followed me, I mean to say it was 
published a few days after my return. I never saw the 
letter till published — will never consent to be a candi- 
date for anything. 

If professional men, all men, would only be brave, 
awake the spontaneous slumberings of human power — 
the inward divinity — and follow it, rouse and educate 
the grandest intuitions of the human soul, then would all 
tyrants perish, and nothing stand between man and his 
God, but the limitations immanent in the human. I hope 
to see things progress along that path, and the day may 
come, if this new democracy get the helm of affairs, when 
that will be the object for which legislators and others 
will bend all their forces. Excuse me. I am on the eve 
of going off on business — to talk for man. Need not an- 
swer. Get others to do so. Your friend, 

W. H. Herndon. 

Some time before the Bloomington meeting Mr. Herndon 
drew up and circulated a paper, calling a county convention 



HERNDO N AND PARKER _93 

in Springfield to select delegates to the Republican State 
convention. Lincoln was away at the time and, believing that 
he knew his partner, Herndon took the liberty of signing his 
name to the call, which he published, with the signatures at- 
tached, in the Sangamon Journal. No sooner had it appeared 
than John T. Stuart — who, with other Springfield friends, 
was trying to save Lincoln from the radicals — rushed into 
the office in great excitement, and asked " if Lincoln had 
signed that Abolitionist call in the Jourvall " Herndon 
calmly told him what he had done, and the indignant Stuart 
exclaimed, " Then you have ruined him! " In relating the 
incident Mr. Herndon adds: 

But I was by no means alarmed at what others deemed in- 
considerate and hasty action. I thought I understood Lin- 
coln thoroughly, but in order to vindicate myself if as- 
sailed I immediately sat down, after Stuart had rushed 
out of the office, and wrote Lincoln, who was then in Taze- 
well County attending court, a brief account of what I had 
done and how much stir it was creating in the ranks of his 
conservative friends. If he approved or disapproved my 
course I asked him to write or telegraph me at once. In a 
brief time came his answer: " All right; go ahead. Will 
meet you — radicals and all." Stuart subsided, and the 
conservative spirits who hovered around Springfield no 
longer held control of the political fortunes of Abraham 
Lincoln.^ 

II 

On May 29th the Republicans of Illinois — or " Anti-Ne- 
braska men, ' ' as they yet called themselves — met in conven- 
tion at Bloomington, with John M. Palmer in the chair. It 
was a notable gathering, and the unanimity of its action was 
all the more astonishing when we recall the spirit of the hour 
and the motley political complexion of its delegate body. 
Democrats like Wentworth, Judd, Allen, and Koerner, an- 
gered by the attitude of their party, were ready for extreme 
measures; several counties having already revolted from the 
Democracy as soon as the Springfield platform had been made 

1 Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and "Weik, Vol. II, p. 52. 



94 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

known: for example Peoria, Madison, and especially Cook, 
where the feeling was intense. Of course the Abolitionists 
were there in full force, led by Lovejoy, Codding, Eastman, 
and Herndon, and such Wliigs as Jesse K. Dubois were for 
going home at once when they saw their activity. That wiser 
counsels prevailed was due to Archibald Williams and Judge 
Dickey, but most of all to Lincoln, who actually dominated 
the convention, dictated its platform, and directed its angry 
radicalism into a moderate and conservative course. 

Such a feat was all the more remarkable when we recall 
the feverish and excited mood of the hour, fanned into a blaze 
by recent events. Civil war was raging in Kansas, where the 
city of Lawrence had just been attacked, and the " Free 
State " hotel and two printing offices destroyed. Governor 
Robinson of Kansas had been arrested without legal warrant 
in Missouri, his house sacked and burned, and himself chained 
out on the prairie, in default of a jail; his wife, and James S. 
Emery, a leading Free State man, were in Bloomington. 
Governor Reeder, who had just escaped from Kansas in dis- 
guise, was also there, making speeches on the street, and stir- 
ring the delegates to fever heat. Just one week before Charles 
Sumner had been assaulted in the Senate Chamber by " Bul- 
ly ' ' Brooks, and was reported to be dying ; while Senator 
Trumbull had offered a resolution in the Senate, designed to 
restore peace in Kansas, only to meet derision. Street talk 
vied with convention oratory in expressions of radicalism, so 
much so that while 0. H. Browning was making a speech the 
crowd kept calling for Lovejoy — who, like Otis of colonial 
fame, was a flame of fire — and Browning was obliged to 
yield the floor. Herndon put forth all his power to restrain 
the radicals, many of whom were still suspicious of Lincoln, 
promising tliem that his partner would be heard at the right 
time. Lincoln himself, who did not ordinarily betray anxiety, 
was in a state of suppressed excitement throughout the session, 
but he kept his mental balance, and never were his powers of 
political shrewdness and strategy put to better account. 

Amid great enthusiasm William H. Bissell, who had led an 
Illinois regiment at the battle of Buena Vista, was nominated 



HERNDON AND PARKER 95 

for Governor, and Francis Hoffman for Lieutenant Governor, 
both choices being unanimous. The remainder of the State 
ticket was made up by a nominating committee, of which Lin- 
coln was chairman, and the report was adopted without altera- 
tion. A State Central Committee was appointed to direct the 
campaign. The resolutions passed were much the same as those 
suggested by the editorial convention at Decatur, conceived 
purposely in a broad and liberal spirit so as to secure the 
support of all classes of anti-slavery men. Only one thing of 
importance was added, namely, that the admission of Kansas 
on the Constitution adopted by the people should take place 
immediately. After a hearty endorsement of the recent work 
of Trumbull in the Senate, further action was taken urging 
the formation of Anti-Nebraska clubs all over the State. No 
sooner had the business been disposed of than a chorus of voic- 
es began to call for ' ' Lincoln ! Lincoln ! ' ' and there followed a 
speech, vivid in its passionate intensity, which his friends said 
" put him on the track for the Presidency." Of that speech 
Mr. Herndon said in a lecture, twelve years later: 

I have heard or read all of Mr. Lincoln's great speeches, 
and I give it as my opinion that the Bloomington speech 
was the grand effort of his life. Heretofore he had simply 
argued the slavery question on grounds of policy — the 
statesman's grounds. . . . Now he was newly baptized; . 
. . the smothered flame broke out; his eyes glowed with 
inspiration; he felt justice; his heart was alive, . . . and he 
stood before the throne of the eternal Right. ... It was 
logic ; it was pathos ; it was enthusiasm ; it was justice, 
equity, truth and right set ablaze by the divine fires of a 
soul maddened by the wrong; it was hard, heavy, knotted, 
gnarled, backed with wrath. I attempted for about fifteen 
minutes as was usual with me then to take notes, but at 
the end of that time I threw pen and paper away and 
lived only in the inspiration of the hour. If Mr. Lincoln 
was six feet and four inches high usually, at Bloomingtbn 
that day he was seven feet, and inspired at that. 

For all of his calm sagacity, Lincoln was in fact a man of 
intense and fiery nature, and his friends, especially Hern- 
don, had often noted in him a gleam as of a sleeping light- 
ning which he dared not use. At last, in a moment of high 



96 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

tension, his impenetrable reserve was broken, the pent-up 
brooding thought of years rushed into flaming speech, and 
his words swayed and quivered as if charged with electricity. 
No report of that outburst remains,^ only memories and im- 
pressions which men try in vain to record; but it is not too 
much to say that it fused the mass of conflicting elements 
into a fraternal union, and welded them into a powerful party. 
" Never was an audience more completely electrified by hu- 
man eloquence," wrote John L. Scripps in the Chicago Press. 
" Again and again during its delivery they sprang to their 
feet and upon the benches and testified by long-continued 
shouts and the waving of hats how deeply the speaker had 
wrought upon their minds and hearts." The burden of his 
utterance was, ' ' Kansas shall be free ! ' ' and he closed with 
a sentence, almost tragic in its earnestness: " We will say to 
the Southern dis-unionists, we won't go out of the Union, 
and you sha'n'tV No one, not even the Abolitionists, any 
longer had any doubt as to where Lincoln stood, and all 
hastened to rally about him as the leader of the new party 
in Illinois. 

When Herndon went back to Springfield he called a 
" mass " meeting to ratify the action of the Bloomington 
Convention, but such was the temper of the town that only 



1 In 1896 W. C. Whitney published in McClure's Magazine what pur- 
ported to be a report of "Lincoki's Lost Speech," as it is called, which 
he claimed to have reproduced from notes taken at the time of its de- 
livery — forty years before. Of course, after so long a time it was im- 
possible to reproduce the speech, however vivid its impression, from long- 
hand notes, and many of the friends of Lincoln who heard the speech 
were annoyed, if not indignant. Among these were J. M. Scott, John 
M. Palmer, T. J. Henderson, I. L. Morrison, George Schneider, B. F. 
Shaw, J. M. Euggles, O. T. Eeeves, and others, all of whom repudiated 
the Whitney version, which professed to give even the interruptions and 
punctuations of "Applause." We need not charge Mr. Whitney with 
forgery, as some have done, but Mr. I. N. Phillips has shown, from inter- 
nal and external evidence, the absurdity of calling that reproduction a 
' ' report. ' ' The Whitney ' ' report ' ' bears almost none of the marks 
of Lincoln's peculiar and characteristic style, and should never have 
been put forth as anything more than an impression or a memory. — 
Abraham Lincoln, by I. N. Phillips, Appendix (1901). 



HERNDON AND PARKER 97 

one man besides himself and Lincoln was present. Lincoln 
spoke, nevertheless — in response to ' ' deafening calls, ' ' as 
Herndon said — dryly remarking that the meeting was larger 
than he had thought it would be, for, while he had been sure 
that he and Herndon would attend, he had not been sure that 
any one else would. And then he concluded: " Wliile all 
seems dead, the age itself is not. It liveth as surely as our 
Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and mo- 
tion, the world does move, nevertheless. Be hopeful, and 
now let us adjourn and appeal to the people." Still, Lincoln 
was not without honor save in his own city ; for, three weeks 
later, in the Republican National Convention at Philadelplua, 
which nominated John C. Fremont for the Presidency, he re- 
ceived 110 votes for Vice-President. When the news reached 
him he said that " It must have been the great Lincoln of 
Massachusetts " they were voting for,^ but so spontaneous a 
tribute, although it did not bring him the nomination, showed 
that he was not an unknown man. So did the letters which 
poured into his office, asking him to speak not only in his own 
State, but in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa. 

Both partners were in request as speakers, Lincoln making 
more than fifty speeches during the campaign, confining him- 
self to his own State. He bent his energies to the task of re- 
ducing the strength of the Know-Nothings — who had organ- 
ized as a secret order, with signs, pass-words, and high-sound- 
ing titles, and nominated Millard Fillmore — and so effective 
was his work that had it been possible to carry the process a 
little farther, he would have saved Illinois. Notable also was 
his infiuence with the Germans, who had really nominated 
Fremont,^ and whom he was eager to win to the new party; 

1 Lincoln 's Vote for Vice-President, by Jesse W. "Weik, Century Maga- 
zine, June, 1908. This fact should be kept in mind by those who write 
as though Lincoln was an obscure, unknown man before his debate 
with Douglas, not less than by those who seem to think that his nomination 
for President in 1860 was a happy accident in politics. Surely Dr. Von 
Hoist has destroyed these two errors. — Constitutional History, Vols. VII, 
VIII (1892). It does not add to the greatness of Lincoln to make his 
career appear magical ; it detracts from it. 

2 Memoirs of Gustave Eoerner, Vol. II, pp. 16, 33 (1909). 



98 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

nor did they admire him less when he exclaimed, ' ' God bless 
the Dutch! " knowing him to be sincere. In a significant 
speech at Galena, while refuting the charge that the Republi- 
cans were working for a disruption of the Union, he let fall a 
few remarks about the binding force of the decisions of the 
Supreme Court, to which he pinned his faith. It so happened 
that the Dred Scott case was then pending before that tri- 
bunal,^ and if Lincoln had forgotten his words Douglas was 
ready to refresh his memory one year later. It was an ex- 
citing contest which, despite the defeat of Fremont, brought 
victory to the new party in Illinois, and added laurels to Lin- 
coln as its leader. 

During the campaign Theodore Parker visited Springfield 
and lectured, and it was characteristic of the town to give him 
a small hearing. Lincoln was away, but Herndon ran in from 
a speaking tour, dusty and tired, only to be chagrined at the 
small audience, and to be yet further humiliated by some mis- 
understanding as to the price of the lecture, which had been 
arranged by Herbert Post. Moreover the lecture had not been 
properly advertised, but advertising would have done little 
good in Springfield where Parker was held to be a dangerous 
man both politically and theologically. Against such an en- 
vironment Herndon had to struggle, and it weighed upon him 
at times like the millions of tons of water on a diver in the sea 



1 This famous case, from whose final decision the nation appealed to 
the God of Battle, was begun in 1847. Dred Scott was a negro slave 
of Dr. Emerson, a surgeon in the United States Army, then stationed in 
Missouri. Dr. Emerson took Scott with him when, in 1843, he moved to 
Illinois, and subsequently to Fort Snelling, Wisconsin. That was free 
territory under the Missouri Compromise, which, if valid, made Scott 
free. When Dr. Emerson returned to IMissouri he brought Scott, his wife 
and child, with him, and the case came to the attention of Eoswell 
Field — father of Eugene Field, the poet — who began proceedings in St. 
Louis. He was defeated, but renewed the fight in 1854, and from an ad- 
verse decision of the lower court appealed to the Supreme Court of the 
United States. His connection with the case ceased with the preparation 
of the appeal, which he sent to Montgomery Blair, with whom was asso- 
ciated for Scott George E. Curtis. — Eugene Field, by Slason Thompson, 
Vel. I, Chap. Ill (1901). 



HERNDON AND PARKER 99 

who is climbing to the surface, which he despairs of reaching 
with brain and body intact. Hence a letter of abject regret : 

Springfield, 111., Nov. 12, 1856. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir : — Enclosed is a letter from Mr. Post. He 
made the arrangements with Mr, Wells in reference to 
your lecture. You ^vill see what he says; and then you 
can throw the blame where it justly belongs. Had j^ou 
spoken to me the night I left you at the tavern and told 
me how this matter stood, I should have felt much better 
than I did after you went away. I regret all this proceed- 
ing very much; yet I do not know where I am to blame. 
I hope you will have the goodness to separate me from the 
' ' mass. ' ' You have been shamefully wronged by some 
one. By the by, did not H. Ward Beecher have a diffi- 
culty with Mr. Wells? What say you? Will you place 
me right in your estimation, if you can? 

When here you told me you intended so soon as you 
could to give four lectures — one on Washington, one on 
Jefferson, one on Franklin, and one on Adams. I hope 
you may do this, and do it as speedily as your good judg- 
ment dictates; they are needed. Can they not be prefaced 
with another — say on " The History of Liberty," run- 
ning from Greece, Rome, Germany, France, and England 
down to us? 

We are defeated for President in Illinois; but have 
elected our whole State ticket — a pure Fremont-Repub- 
lican ticket — for officers in this State. This is glory 
enough for Illinois; it is a reproof, a burning blasting cen- 
sure to Douglas and Richardson ; they are politically dead ; 
compensation will follow ; hell — let this word stand — 
will get two sweet morsels when they go, if they do go. 
We Fremont men feel as if victory had perched on our 
banner. Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Such a triumph, won by a fusion of heterogeneous elements, 
was just cause for pride, as it was the first time in the his- 
tory of Illinois that the Democrats had failed of a majority 
in the State elections. How nobly the various elements had 
worked together — the Abolitionists led by Lovejoy, the 
Whigs by Lincoln and Yates, the Democrats by Went worth. 
Palmer, and Koerner: and each leader realized that the vie- 



100 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

tory was due to the efforts of each faction and to the unity 
of all. Had the Know-Nothings joined forces with the new 
party Buchanan would have been defeated, for they held the 
balance of power. But Fremont was not the man for Pres- 
ident in such a crisis ; moreover the Republican party was too 
young to take control of affairs, and had yet to find its true 
leader. Parker interpreted the meaning of the election as 
follows : 

Boston, Mass., Nov. 17, 1856. 
My dear Mr. Herndon: 

Don't think I had any hard thoughts about the lecture 
at Springfield. I was more concerned at the smallness of 
the audience than aught besides. I felt a little delicacy 
about naming the matter to you and should not have 
thought any more of it had not you written for an ex- 
planation of my looks. There was a misunderstanding 
between Mr. Beecher and Mr. Wells ; but I shall have none 
with anybody. 

Wliile I write the " Democrats " who think the self- 
evident truth of the Declaration of Independence " is self- 
evident lie " are firing their cannons in the Common for 
the victory of Slavery over Freedom. Just eighty years 
ago today the Tories in New York celebrated the greatest 
victory which the British gained over the Americans in 
the Revolution. For November 16, 1776, General Greene 
surrendered Fort Washington to the British with 2818 
men, provisions, cannons, etc. It was the greatest defeat 
in the whole war! How the Tories rejoiced! 

Well, the cause of American democracy was in less ter- 
rible peril November 17, 1776, than November 17, 1856; 
for then our chief foes were abroad, the pestilent council 
was 3000 miles off ; while now our enemy is in the midst of 
us and we think him a friend, and the vicious council is 
chosen by the people whom it prepares to ruin. 

Election morning there were three alternatives before 
the people : — 1. Freedom may annihilate the institutions 
of slavery by peaceful legislation. II. Slavery may an- 
nihilate the institutions of freedom by peaceful legislation. 
III. The hostile parties may draw their swords and fight 
the matter out.^ 



1 Parker had always a fancy for prediction, as may be seen in a letter 
to Dr. Fuster, a Viennese professor, June 17, 1856: "Fremont will be 
nominated tomorrow. I tliink he will be elected; then the trouble is 




Theodore P.\kker 

From a portrait nuule in Switzerland by Desor soon after 

the death of Parker, and never before 

reproduced in America 



HERNDON AND PARKER 101 

Election night, by the action of the people the first al- 
ternative was withdrawn. Now we are to make our choice 
between II and III — between the ruin of Democratic in- 
stitutions and Civil War. Do you doubt which we shall 
choose? God bless your noble efforts. 

Yours faithfully, Tiieo. P.vkker. 

This letter, with its ominous forebodings, impressed Herndon 
deeply, and we shall find him recurring to it, as to a prophetic 
scroll, the following year. His reply is interesting, as a 
glimpse of his energy, his enthusiasm, and his methods of 
work in a cause which possessed him like a passion. His let- 
ter is frank, but in no sense boastful or exaggerative : 

Springfield, 111., Dec. 27, 1856. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I received your letter in answer to mine, 
directed to you at Boston, and for which I am under many 
obligations to you. In yours you approve my conduct in 
reference to the cause of Freedom in Illinois, during the 
late Presidential race. I tried to do my duty and spoke 
always from a high and elevated standpoint. If I did not 
persuade everybody, I at least taught some that there was 
such a thing as Justice ; that there was an Ideal always 
floating close to man but ever moving towards God, I 
urged the young men to struggle for that point where the 
Ideal and Actual are wed. 

When I wrote to you some years since you must have 
thought I was crazy in stating to you that I intended to 
sow seeds which should never die. Now let me state to 
you what I did — what I acted, and then you may pro- 
nounce " guilty " or " not guilty " of rashness. Firstly: 
I collected some two or three hundred dollars and sent this 
to the Republican association and other places; and pur- 
chased documents, speeches, books, etc., and scattered them 
among our people. I did this alone. Secondly: I com- 
menced early in 1854 in our county and spoke on every 
stump and in every church and schoolhouse therein, and 
thus carried our county by a larger majority than ever 
before. 



settled peacefully. If he is not elected, then the Union goes to pieces 
in five years — not without blood. It is strange that men are not yet 
wise enough to settle difficulties without fighting." — BecoUectiom of 
Seventy Years, by F. B. Sanborn, Vol. IT, p. 563 (1909). 



102 LINCOLN A ND HEENDON 

Thirdly: I commenced early in March, 1856, and spoke 
upon an average of twice a week in almost every part of 
our wide-extended State — spoke to tens and to ten thou- 
sand at once. I always spoke feelingly, earnestly, with 
force, though I do say it myself. Fourthly: I turned my 
ofiSce into a kind of war-office — took the young, active, vig- 
orous, honest men there and talked to them — got them to 
take an interest that they would not otherwise have done 
in favor of human liberty — human rights. Fifthly: You 
know my position here, 1 suppose, as a lawyer and a man ; 
and if I had any earthly influence, let me assure you that 
I moved this class as intensely as I could. I did some good 
even in this department — the Law — of frigid conserv- 
atism. Sixthly: When I met a young man of my profes- 
sion who had high hopes — who was pure — who had an 
ideal of the perfection of purposes — who was really re- 
ligious in God's view of actual religion, I gave him a list 
of books and made him buy them. You know probably 
what I recommended and whose books. 

Mr. Parker, these are facts and not imaginations which 
were dreamed. These I state to you as facts, by which I 
am willing to be judged. If these things, with others which 
I cannot now express, do not amount to sowing seeds that 
will never die, then the ability simply fell short of the 
hopes. 

In your last letter to me you stated you regretted your 
lecture here more on account of the absence of the audi- 
ence than most anything else. This I regretted as much 
as you did; yet let me state to you that I think it sprung 
from no ill will to you ; but more from a complication of 
facts, i hoped to have a long chat with you on the even- 
ing you were here, and to state to you things as they exist 
in the West, and which you will scarcely get unvarnished 
for a long time to come ; but an unexpected misunderstand- 
ing came over us, and cut me through ; thus depriving me 
of the pleasure. ... I was at the time worn down, ha^ang 
spoken I think nearly a hundred times — was not well — 
had neglected my person, my clothes, my home, office, all, 
all, and suppose I did not cut a very handsome figure be- 
fore you. Friend, pardon all — forget and forgive — re- 
member only the good ; the motives and intentions. 

Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

Give my best respects to your friend Wendell Phillips 
and tell him to publish his speeches by all means. 



HERNDON AND PARKER 103 

III 

With the election of Buchanan — than whom slavery never 
had a better friend — Lincoln fell into one of those strange 
lapses which are among the least comprehensible of the mys- 
teries of liis life. During the next two years he did little to 
suggest the brilliant work of 1854 and 1856, or the splendid 
service he was to render in the near future. His speeches at 
the banquet in Chicago and at Springfield in June, 1857, show 
little advance in thought, and none in oratorical manner. In 
fact, there is in both a marked falling away from the dignity 
and power of his speeches in 1854. But the lapse, if we may 
so speak of it, was only temporary, and was due no doubt to 
his disgust, if not discouragement, at the triumph of wrong. 
While the campaign was going on business had piled up in 
the office, but Herndon found time to write to his friend 
Parker, congratulating him upon the re-election of Charles 
Sumner. Politically, theologically, and otherwise the Western 
lawyer and the Boston reformer had much in common, in- 
cluding an ardent love of nature in all her aspects ; as witness 
the following letter, written by a true child of the open air, 
reporting a tramp in the winter woods : 

Springfield, 111., Jan. 24, 1857. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — We have just heard that Hon. Charles 
Sumner has been re-elected to the United States Senate, 
by the Legislature of Old IMassachusetts. God bless her! 
Let me congratulate you, and humanity through you, up- 
on this great event in tli,e history of the moves of Liberty. 
Humanity can be reached only through the individual — 
I use you. May Sumner live — may you live, he sena- 
torially, and you ministerially — to strike the last link, 
and shiver it too, from the last slave that breathes the free 
air of heaven. Your letter to me, some time since, and 
your letter to the Anti-Slavery Convention, I am reflect- 
ing on. Enough of politics now. 

I am this moment in my office — bodily so ; yet I am 
in the woods. I got tired of town and books; and so I 
thought I would take a ramble in the forests "svith my dog 
and gun, and see what I could see. The day is very cold 



104 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

— so cold that the frozen particles of water glitter like 
millions of small fire globes, blazing in the air. The keen 
wind whips around the sharp corners of the hills; cold, 
yet I press on to the place of game and sport. I am now 
in the deep woods; and stealthily creep along the under- 
brush, now mo\dng this bush, now that limb, that impedes 
my way. Man is the lord of all he surveys! He is king! 
And yet he bows humbly to the outstretched arm of briar 
and bush. Great lord — he ! After traveling thus for two 
or three miles over dense woods and underbrush, I became 
somewhat fatigued and sat down on a log, and commenced 
looking at nature. The trees pop and crack all around me ; 
and the few little birds that are about lie low — keep close 
to the ground. The forest trees stand out boldly against 
the infinite blue — look shriveled in their ' ' cold and naked 
anatomy ' ' — this from you, I think. Before me stands a 
large black oak, probably a thousand years old, and up and 
down its trunk runs, skips and hops, a little tom-tit, a 
small speckled bird, about as big as a canary, now running 
vertically up and down, now laterally around, peeping 
into the thick bark — that is, into the crevices — to see if 
he cannot find the larvge of bug or insect, or a stray berry 
which some unfortunate bird has forgotten, or has not yet 
needed. This little bird is a great rogue. He has two 
equally long claws before and behind; and so is adapted 
to go up or down or around ; he is a cute little rogue. His 
voice seems to say chick-quit, chick-quit. He found nothing 
and has flown. 

I see some distance from me a tolerably large black-jack 
hickory bush; it has very large hiberneals for the leaf 
germ, and I want to see into them. In going to the tree 
through the bushes and snow I looked a little ahead of me, 
and in a small bunch of dry grass sits a rabbit, snug and 
warm. Timid little fellow — free from harm so far as 
my gun is concerned. The dog is behind me and yet I 
can see — he has thrown his head up to the wind — that 
he has caught the scent, and we shall have a chase. Sure 
enough, the rabbit bounds and the dog yelps hot after him ; 
they range down a small slope and up a little elevation — 
down another hollov\- and are out of sight. After a few 
seconds I hear the dog bark, and when I get there I find 
that the rabbit has " holed," and the dog is scratching at 
the roots of the tree. I let it alone and called my dog off, 
and went along up the creek, forgetting my hibernacle 
philosophy. 

I went to the creek and cut a small hole in the ice — in 



HERNDON AND PARKER 105 

a ripple — and stooped to drink ; and about this time some 
little fishes caught the thrill of an air hole and came to it; 
and there they and I had fun. They would struggle with 
each other as to their right of air, but as with men the 
'• biggest " and cruelest took the day: here goes a little 
chub; he has got mad and sulky, and so he goes off and 
pouts and threats. They all move, not as in summer, quick 
and flashing, but dull, heavy and not beautiful, as in spring. 
As many as can hover around the hole, but soon winter will 
seal the window with bar of spicula and shutter of ice. 

I am now on the ice going down the creek to Sangamon 
River, about five miles from town, where I expect to find 
game. On my way down, on the ice, I see little tracks of 
wood-mice, crossing the creek on the snow. The little fel- 
lows' legs are too short to reach the ice through the snow, 
and so they make a track — a path, rather, with their whole 
body, still leaving a small impression with the feet. Here 
stands a large snag in the ice, leaning at about an angle of 
forty-five degrees east, and the snow for some j^ards has 
been blown from the ice, leaving a clean path west of the 
snag — the wind having blown from the east. I can see the 
diverging paths of the wind, widening every inch from the 
trunk of the tree, until wholly lost by cross currents and 
its own failing power. This is a curious study ; the laws of 
the winds, if they have any laws, can here be seen in some 
of their manifestations. Is there any law in anything, in 
matter and spirit? Is there any law in material nature? 
Is not the idea of law an abstraction? 

I pick up my gun from the ice and pad along to the 
field of sport. Down the creek an animal is crossing and I 
will " put him through," if he is of the eatable species; 
but if not, it and my dog for it. I walk on and the thing 
proves to be an old he ground-hog — rather a hard customer 
for a common dog. He is smart: he " holes " or I should 
have assisted my dog — if necessary. These ground-hogs 
are a thick, heavy-made animal, weighing about fifteen 
pounds — long, not active ; powerful, tough ; broad teeth 
before, like a beaver, for cutting roots in burrowing; they 
are long-lived, useless creatures: looking out of man's eyes, 
when I say this. My dog whines at the hole in the bank, 
and looks up with his large gray intelligent eyes and asks 
me to assist him. But I can do him no good — take a day 
to do it. So we go till we can just see the banks of the 
Sangamon. 

Across the river I expect to find some good wild game, 
up on the bluffs and amidst the dense woods, probably 



106 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

some wild turkeys. I am now traveling slowly, attentively 

— my eyes sweeping over this hill and up and down that 
hollow. I have now got on some fresh turkey tracks, and 
I will follow on and go with them. I look at the tracks and 
the long toes go due north, ranging for some fields ; and so 
I know about where they are. I walk slowly, my eyes 
sweeping the short space before me, so as to be as quick 
as the exigencies demand. It is not long before I hear a 
quick, sharp noise, going quit, quit. These are turkeys. 
The dog has flushed them; they take to flight, some light- 
ing on the large tall trees not far from me. Yonder is one 
and I will go for it. So I pull off my gloves, lay my rifle 
up against a tree and take sight, touch the trigger and off 
it goes. The turkey bounds up, quivers on the wing, and 

— falls. I pick it up and start home. Its blue, cold neck 
is long — toes on the ground and its bill coming to the vest. 

I am now at the river standing on a high bold knob 
where I stood twenty years ago; but 0, what a change! 
Instead of wildness and wolves I see farm on farm till they 
melt on the horizon, and cattle and sheep scattered along 
the plain. The deep, owl-forest has been cut away, and 
the wood-man's axe kisses the sun in its whirl. 0, what a 
change — all for the better. Go on and you may see what 
another has said, a day when the state shall be without a 
king, society without aristocracy, a church without a priest, 
and a family without a slave. Yours truly, 

W. H. Herndon. 

And in other fields Mr. Herndon was also a hunter, particu- 
larly in philosophy, whither his speculative tendency led him 
in quest of game. In his library, which was unusually large 
for that time and place, might he found the works of Kant, 
Hegel, Comte, Schlegel, and others, alongside the writings 
of many of the disobedient essayists — books rarely seen on 
the shelves of a prairie attorney. This penchant for specu- 
lative inquiries was another tie between him and Parker, who 
dealt with such themes in large and bold strokes, and whose 
intuitional philosophy appealed to his vivid and intuitive in- 
tellect. Having read the sermons of Parker on " Theism, 
Atheism, and the Popular Theology," he went off on another 
tramp, and if he brought back little game it was because in 
this forest the underbrush is dense and the turkeys fly very 
high: 



HEBNDQN AND PARKER 107 

Springfield, 111., Feb., 1857. 
Mr. Parker. 

Friend : — I am troublesome I know, yet I am bothered, 
and want to free myself, if I can. I have an idea that there 
are no laws in nature as usually understood. I infer this 
from your three most excellent sermons on " Providence." 
My idea is, that this thing of Law is a fiction, is a general- 
ization, not an abstraction in the school-man's sense, to 
assist human thought. The idea of Law is the economy 
of the human mind. I agree that there are order and 
method pervading nature, but do order and method make 
Law? If so, then eagles which come from the mint are 
produced, created, by law; for each dollar comes in due 
succession : they are identical, showing method. The truth 
is that these dollars come by force, and not Law; and you 
may pile order on order, and succession on succession, and 
method on method throughout the eternities, still you have 
not a Law: you have repetitions; but repetitions do not 
make Laws. I can repeat a complex fact always, still 
repetition does not constitute Law. Laws are inferences 
from known facts. 

A rock falls to the ground, two, ten thousand fall, and 
we yelp gravitation — Law. What do I understand ? 
Nothing. The wise man says, " Attraction is gravitation, 
and gravitation is attraction." Still what do I under- 
stand ? Nothing. I see an eternal fact — not Law. Whilst 
the philosopher's notions of Law are evanescent, these facts 
are permanent. Do not misunderstand me. I see all these 
orders, successions, methods, harmonies, and beauties, and 
the great good God governing all, still my mind cannot see 
Law. I see a " special Pro^ddence " in the creation IMight, 
the All-All, forever present and eternally creative, creating 
world and worm, zoophyte and man, fire and frost ; but I 
cannot comprehend Law. If you say it is simply a method- 
path, whereby or whereon nature moves, then I say yea ; 
but you force me to bow down and say Law when I cannot 
do so, in my heart. I am willing that the word " law " may 
be used, if it be undei'stood thereby that all that is meant 
is method, order, and succession, or paths; but unwilling 
when you say Law and mean thereby an eternal rule in na- 
ture, objective to the mind. Law is a generalization of and 
in the mind, is a subjective concept in the Reason. Place 
it there and I am content. Law is not in nature as a prop- 
erty, attribute, quality, or essence. If it is, why not put it 
down in the categories of matter? 

I have used the word ' ' special Providence, ' ' and now let 



108 LINCOLN AND HERNDQN 

me explain. I mean this : that God 's providence is immedi- 
ate as to time, special as to particulars, and universal as to 
matter and spirit, including all inorganic things and organic 
creatures ; and thus He acts immediately, specially, and uni- 
versally. His special Providence to man is man's nature; 
to fish, fish 's nature ; and I understand this much from your 
" Theism." Any other explanation is to me absurd. Or- 
der, succession, motion, beauty, worm and man, methods, ap- 
parent exceptions, all can work and flow without conflict 
here. 

This opposition to the idea of Law did not, so far as I am 
concerned, come from Comte, Holyoke, or Lewis ; but sprung 
up in me spontaneously when in school ; but I was afraid to 
ask the teacher what was meant by Law. So I suffered and 
was ignorant. My ideas of technical theology, popular the- 
ology, are equally in the dark — not clear in that point. 
Fear is a horrible idea. A ' ' monkey priest " is as cruel as 
the grave, and as cold. 

Come and go to the nuclei of the winds and water cur- 
rents, and what do you see? Nothing but constant modes 
of operation, paths, not Laws, which speak in the eloquence 
of Gulf Streams and Simoons. Come let us leap up into 
the uncolumned air and rest upon the spongy foundation, 
and there let us see satellite, planet, and sun ; sea, air, and 
land. What do you see? Co-existences and successions, 
powers and forces, and consciously God — no Laws; but 
all, all governed by constant modes of operation, God the 
immediate cause. This is my philosophy. Am I wrong? 
I do not belong to the sensational school — at least do not 
know it. I would say to the philosophers, " Drive the 
ultimates upwards and downwards around the circle till 
they meet in God. ' ' Yours truly, 

W. H. Herndon. 

P. S. In your sermons on "Providence," which are 
eloquent, full of reason by ideas and analogy, there is a 
mistake in fact. This is a mistake in physiology. Beasts 
have pains in parturition and dentation. Excuse me. 

IV 

On the day following the inauguration of President Bu- 
chanan the Supreme Court decision of the Dred Scott case 
was announced, having been foreshadowed with ill-advised 
plainness in the inaugural address. It held, with a divided 
bench, it is true, that negroes could never become citizens of 



HERNDON AND PARKER 109 

the United States; that slaves must be regarded as property 
entitled to protection as such in every part of the Union; 
that temporary residence in a Free State did not give a negro 
freedom; and that the Missouri Compromise and similar pro- 
hibitory acts were unconstitutional, Congress having no pow- 
er to pass them. Indeed, the Court went beyond the princi- 
ple of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and held that even the people 
of a Territory could not, prior to its organization and ad- 
ministration as a State, exclude slavery from their midst ; thus 
making " popular sovereignty " invalid, for there was no 
sovereignty where there was no option. Such was the major- 
ity opinion, written by Chief Justice Taney; the minority 
opinion by Justice Curtis took opposite ground ; for the judg- 
es, instead of writing ordinary opinions, indulged in essays 
on all branches of the slavery question. Both sides dealt with 
matters not before the Court, gi^'ing the decision the color of 
a sectional debate, and as such it was received by the country. 
At last the fatal dualism of the nation had reached the supreme 
tribunal, and unless the Court could be made to reverse itself 
there was no appeal but to War. 

Once again, as Lincoln had predicted, the South was flushed 
with triumph, and the North ablaze with wrath. The excite- 
ment increased and the North was in a veritable furore of in- 
dignation, which was unfortunately justifiable. Throughout 
the Free States, from legislative halls down to the smallest de- 
bating society, the decision was denounced as a conspiracy on 
the part of the Slave Power to fasten slavery upon the nation. 
Herndon excelled in reporting the storms of popular feeling, 
as may be seen in his letter to Parker a few days later: 

Springfield, 111., March 10, 1857. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir : — The import of your letter to me dated No- 
vember, 1856, just after the Presidential election, rises up 
in its importance and becomes more plain, as the coin in 
it is heated before the fiery logic of sweeping events. Those 
three propositions stand out boldly; so that "he who runs 
may read." I understand that the South are determined 
to bend the North or break us in the attempt. They are 
evidently presenting this alternative : slavery for the whole 



no LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

race of men in time, or freedom for every man of that 
race. I had always dreamed that this question would wear 
oif and get more dim and less terrible in the distance — 
somewhat like a mirage when approached, slipping along 
over the sandy desert. But I am now beginning to be un- 
deceived. I am not faith-ridden in this idea any longer. 
God preserve the Free and the Just! 

Since I have written you a political letter, three grand 
events, for the pro-slave party, have happened: Firstly, 
the election of James Buchanan ; Secondly, the new quar- 
rels in Kansas; and Thirdly, the decision of the Supreme 
Court of the United States in the " Dred Scott Case." 
The first gives color to a pro-slavery election and admin- 
istration; and it will be presumed, contrary to the truth, 
that the people wanted a nigger-driving servant in Mr. 
Buchanan, and crush things accordingly. The second 
springs from the first ; and it shows this — that the pro- 
slavery party have Kansas beneath their iron heel, heated 
from the furnace of " hell," blasting and burning as they 
tread. A million men in Kansas this day could do Kansas 
no good, except in this — Revolution. The rights of ma- 
jorities are taken away, and the rights of man wholly de- 
nied there. They have got the engine of despotism geared 
and organized with a working despotcratic institution. In 
my humble opinion Kansas will be a Slave State. If the 
South want it a Slave State it will be one ; but if they can 
do better, if it will be to their interests and advantage to 
make it free, then it will be free — not otherwise. Not 
as Freedom wants; but as the nigger-makers see fit and 
proper to have it. 

I was told confidentially the other day by a man who 
pretends to know — I think ought to know — that the peo- 
ple of Kansas would take no part in any elections, for con- 
vention, Legislature or otherwise, and that all elections would 
go by default; that it would be a Slave State spite of all 
human exertions from the free side ; and that so soon as it 
was a State the people would revolutionize. This is all that 
can be done, as those people think. I see no other hope at 
present. This is terrible ; but if the slave-makers will have 
it so — so be it. If the South will tap the dinner gong and 
call the wild, bony, quick, brave peoples to a feast of Civil 
War, and make this land quiver and ring from center to 
'■y' circumference, then I can but say " the quicker the bet- 
ter. ' ' I dread this whole matter. The issue is — Freedom 
or Slavery — War in time or Peace. 

The third — the decision of the Supreme Court — set- 



HERNDON AND PARKER 111 

ties the question of the nationalization of slavery, wipes 
out State rights, crushes justice, defies right; says in short 
that the colored man is not a man, never shall be, was not 
made by God ; drives back this hoping, burning age, so far 
as it can, into barbarism. I suppose that Court thinks it 
has settled agitation. Bah ! " Whom the gods want to de- 
stroy they first make mad," is an old classic maxim. This 
old heathen sajang is partially true ; and seems very ap- 
propriately to apply to the southern hot-heads at this mo- 
ment. Since the decision of the ' ' Dred Scott Case ' ' I have 
seen calm, cool, philosophic men grit their teeth and — 
swear. What are we to do, is the question now uppermost 
in all men's minds — in those hearts who love Liberty, and 
hate Slavery. What shall be done? How to do it? Shnll 
bloody, deadly, internecine, savage, civil war wipe out er- 
ror from the " black-board " of this democratic school- 
house ; or shall the lesson be carved deeply in it, to be read 
by noble youths as they shall spring on the stand in after 
ages? Wliat say you? Can you not write me a few lines 
— give your ideas ? Your friend, 

W. H. Herndon. 

Parker was ill and unable to reply, but Herndon went on 
pouring out his feelings, his letters becoming every day more 
intense, more vivid, and at times startlingly prophetic of 
coming events. He had an intuitive insight into the hearts of 
men, which made him open to their inward impulses, even 
before men were themselves aware what they were thinking 
and upon what motive they would act : 

Springfield, 111., March 30, 1857. 
Mr. Parker, 

Dear Friend : — Yours of March 17th is this moment at 
hand ; and written as it informs me by the delicate hand 
of your wife. Had it been more lengthy I should have 
preserved it during life, but as it is, I thank her and you 
for it. I hope you will soon recover and be well and vig- 
orous again. I want that vigor, like a vital battery, to 
play upon the fortifications of creeping, approaching des- 
potism. I have tremblingly, throl)bingiy, and as rationally 
and cautiously as I could, turned and returned, split and 
divided, analyzed and compounded this question — the 
slave question — and I see no way open but cowardice in 
the North, a "back down" in the South, or — open, bloody, 
civil War. It is horrible. You will excuse my timidity 



112 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

now and heretofore, as you are aware that almost all my 
relations live in the South, that that is my native country, 
my child-home. If, however, the worst comes I hope to 
act the part of a man — not cruelly, but firmly in humanity. 
I think you have confidence in me here. 

I have just come off the circuit — not an orthodox 
Christian circuit, but a law circuit — and let me say to 
you this: the Supreme Court of the United States has 
ruined itself, cast off its dignity and thrown the rags in 
the face of the people. I suppose you know my standing 
as a lawyer among my profession. If you do not I will not 
say, but can say this much, that all the lawyers of any 
virtue or eminence in this central region curse the de- 
cision in the " Dred Scott Case." I have seen gloom on 
the faces of men but never saw the hell-gloom before. The 
people are stunned and are now ready to flee or fight — 
don't care which. There is a bitter time coming. Look 
out! Did you ever see an ox knocked down in a butcher's 
stall ? So the people are hit right in the face ; and did you 
ever see that ox rise and run reeling, wild, bleeding, bel- 
lowing, mad, furious, and destructive? So gather up this 
people their quivering spasmodic energy. I do not think 
there is much exaggeration in this — far from it. This 
decision, if it may be called one, is wicked, cruel, and will 
crush the Supreme Court, or destroy its power more than 
ten thousand political speeches from us Republicans. It 
is a wedge, as you say, sharp at the penetrating end, wide 
at the other. It enters, making but a small crack at first, 
but soon the object opens and widens till it is in twain. I 
shall never quote it, if I can help it, when Taney gives the 
decision. It is a despotocratic Court doomed to split, as the 
Northern and Southern church, the Northern and South- 
ern people, the Northern and Southern gods. Hang to 
justice, love equity, do right, look up to God and hope — 
that is my motto ; and I will execute all this, if I can, and 
too many temptations do not cross my path. In Illinois 
this day the Anti-Slavery spirit is more energetic, fiery, 
more daring, than ever. The end is not yet. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

In a note to Mrs. Parker, accompanying this letter, Mr. Hern- 
don confessed his reason for writing to her husband, thereby 
answering a question which must by this time have been in 
the mind of the reader: " Let me say to you that the reason 
I write to him is this : he is about the only man living who 



HERNDON AND PARKER 113 

can hold me steady. That is a decided compliment. I never 
told him this much, but an opportunity is now afforded and 
I quickly seize the occasion. Excuse my rudeness." One 
week later he wrote again, as one who looked out upon an 
angry, storm-swept sea, and reported what he saw : 

Springfield, 111., April 8, 1857. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir : — The first thing is : I hope you are well, or 
at least getting so. You may not be fully recovered and 
therefore too feeble to study, and in this condition, a little 
gloomy and a little ill, you may desire to know how the 
healthy world moves. The spirit-world, the man-world, 
moves along grandly. 

We have just heard from St. Louis this moment; they 
have had a municipal election there, and the emancipation- 
ists — the Republicans — have elected Mr. Weimer over 
Mr. Pratt, the candidate of the rich, cowardly Wliigs and 
nigger-driving Democrats. The race was a hot one — felt 
here; but the spirit of Liberty is abroad. Thank God! 
The chains are rusted and cracking. Those are noble boys 
in St. Louis. They are Yankees mostly and Kentuckians. 
The Germans here are throwing high their hats ; the Irish 
crouch and cower; they see their fate written on the wall. 
The Bible says, " place high " some sign " that he may 
run that readeth it." (Habakkuk 2:20.) You know it is 
generally quoted thus : * * he may read that runs, ' ' but 
this is wrong. The sign is high and legible. Now I do not 
say all this, do not see with a philosophic eye all they feel, 
yet they feel and look just as I tell you. If instinctive 
sagacity, if intuition is correct, then is slavery to a certain 
extent doomed around this region. I see it in the counte- 
nances of the nigger-driving editors here. Their thoughts 

as seen floating in the eye and on the lip say this : ' * D 

Douglas, curse the Supreme Court; it made a foolish de- 
cision in the Dred Scott case ; we are ruined. ! that 
we were back where we were in 1853." You know I am 
a kind of people's boy; I' am with them, and when they do 
not know it I am pillowing my chin on my hand, looking 
right into their souls; and when I say to you, " There is 
something there of fire, of gloom, a calculated determina- 
tion to flee, or fight out this nigger question — that even 
the voice tells of the disturbed soul, that the chin blabs, 
that the man is ablaze," you must believe me. I am not 
fooled as to present appearances. I am hard to fool here 



114 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

among these people. They may step backwards soon, but 
now they would fight quickly — at the drop of a hat. This 
nigger question is deepening, broadening, heightening here, 
and I hope it may be continued forever — at least till there 
shall be no more slavery. I re-read your two speeches on 
the " Great Battle " yesterday; and when you are talking 
about pulling up weeds, and about the intuitions of Sew- 
ard, etc., I think — aye. 

We had an election here on yesterday and it turned out 
as follows: the Republicans were wholly defeated. We 
quarreled over temperance. We ran some Know-Nothings, 
and the Dutch to a man voted against this proceeding. 
We are whipped badly. I opposed all the whiskey issues 
— the Know-Nothings — but could do no good. We have 
learned a good lesson — do better next time. 

I had, this morning, a most excellent '' chat " with the 
Rev. Mr. Finley, of this State, about colonization. He is 
a very fine man — ideas as clear as a bell. His ideas are that 
the niggers are doomed to move off South gradually. He 
sees the Virginia moves and the Missouri moves in no other 
light than a move of the emancipationists. I had a most 
entertaining conversation on yesterday with one of the lead- 
ing emancipationists of Missouri, and one of the leading 
Republicans of this State. Do not ask who they are — will 
tell you about it ere long. This is the substance of it : the 
Missouri Democrat is to open and bloom for Republicanism 
in 1860. The Louisville Journal is to follow, and some pa- 
per in Virginia is to fall into the trail, all of which is, as 
it were, to happen accidentally. The Democrat is simply 
V^-' to suggest, the Journal is to suggest still stronger, and at 
^^^ last all are to open wide for Republicanism. As these two 
men said. " We are to see the de\dl in these border States 
in 1860." These two men are more than ordinary men; 
the conversation was in my office, and was confidential; 
therefore I keep dark and request you to do so on the Mis- 
souri man 's account — don 't care for the Illinois man. You 
know the Illinois man. My little girl sends her respects. 
Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

We may guess that the two men were Frank Blaiii and Abra- 
ham Lincoln, who were at that time trying, with the aid of 
their friend George D. Prentice of the Louisville Journal, to 
make such a move. But the hope of the emancipationists, 
noble though it was in its just conservatism, was futile and 
doomed to failure. In the meantime Herndon — recently 



HEBNDON AND PARKER 115 

appointed a bank examiner by Governor Bissell — betakes 
himself to the woods to escape the seething confusion of 
politics : 

Springfield, 111., May 14, 1857. 
Mr. Parker, 

Dear Sir : — It has been but a little time since I wrote 
to you, and I have not much news to send. Still, I have a 
word or two to say to you, by way of encouragement. I 
hope you are better than you were some time ago; hate to 
see you down in bed; know that it is annoying you. You 
are nervous and do not like to be still ; do not like to be 
chained in any sense; yet your philosophy may teach you 
repose, contentment, rest \nthout a growl. In this you 
have the advantage of me. 

Well, since the decision in the Dred Scott case I have 
been among our people a great deal, and I can say to you 
that none like it, and some Democrats have been so bold 
as to repudiate the court and party. They stand up tliis 
day freemen in the best sense of the term, defying party 
hacks and throwing off old party associations. Since I 
wrote you I have conversed with many of my profession, 
and they scout the court and the reasons of the decision. 
This decision has hurt the court very much, has hurt the 
nigger-driving Democracy. Has not the stand Curtis has 
taken aided his waning popularity, his doubtful position? 
I think the nigger-driving court and the persecutions of the 
Southern press will drive Curtis to be an Abolitionist, if 
such a thing can be possible. You know the result bettei 
than I do or can. 

This is enough about politics, and so let me turn to a 
more congenial subject. I became tired of books, ofBce and 
court, on yesterday, and so took a walk in the wild woods, 
where I could see Nature in the face. It has been very 
cold for the last month, but within a few days spring seems 
to have sent her electricity along the earth and made her 
smile in flower blushes. In entering the woods the first 
thing that arrested my eye was our wild gooseberry bushes. 
They are out, in almost full leaf, and look fresh and lovely 
even in their thorns. As I crept amid the brush the cat- 
bird would flutter along just before me, sometimes on the 
ground and sometimes on a bush. The bluebell is up and 
in full bloom. You remember what you said about this 
universal flower. It is rather a pretty flower for the early 
spring. The lamb-tongue is up, full of life and vitality. 
The johnny-jumpups are smiling upwards with their deli- 



116 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

cate but cunning laugh. These flowers are " game," and 
so the boys and girls gather hat-fulls and apron-fulls and 
have a fight. They have a peculiar turn of the neck just 
below the flower and this serves as a notch; and the boys 
and girls hitch one to the other and " pull out," and so 
the strongest and most wiry takes the day. Fraud and 
cunning are in this game, as well as in others. The knowing 
ones, boys and girls, run crooked pins up the stalks, and 
so make the pin do the deceitful service. Fraud and de- 
ception are twins to man. Look down into the eternal or- 
ganizable fluid and see the germ cell: in it are crouched 
life and death — man and deception. 

Let me quit this : it is ugly. Down the hollow I see, on 
an elm, several squirrels, hopping and chattering, and so 
I am going down to see what I can see. Here they are. 
They pay no attention to me ; they know I have no gun, and 
so they can be saucy. The squirrels are after buds; they 
want something fresh and green to lave the winter's thirst 
— so long since they have had vegetables. A little fellow 
runs out as far as his limb and weight will let him. He 
cunningly puts out his paw and pulls the limb in and eats 
off the buds, and lets the limb fly back again. If I had a 
gun I think I could spat them off. This is, I know, cruel, 
yet I cannot help it. I remember what you said about the 
" dandy " shooting little birds. Every time I put a gun 
to my face I can see the " dandy " of whom you spoke. 
Do not liken him to myself or I shall go mad. To kill 
things for mere sport is cruel in the extreme, but we do not 
do it here. If we kill anything out here it is to eat, or to 
save poultry; and if this is no justification, then we must 
throw ourselves upon the universal custom, which is so 
aged that no man's mind runs to the contrary. 

I move down to a small lake, one end of which runs into 
a creek. The lake is in the shape of a horseshoe, and near 
the creek fish have their sport. There they play and spawn 
upon the ripple. I am looking at a large bass, playing 
backwards and forwards, breathing leisurely, as if he 
were in air. The water is pure and clean. The fish is about 
two feet long, fat and nimble. Wave but a hand and he is 
off into the deep. He sees his shadow and supposes it is 
another fish, for he seems to woo it, twists his tail and wants 
to hug his shadow companion ; yet it slips away from him. 
I love nature better than most men. My first love is God, 
then man, then nature. Yours truly, 

W. H. Herndon. 



HERNDON AND PARKER 117 



Armed with the Dred Scott decision, Douglas hastened home 
to use it as a cudgel upon the heads of his Republican foes, 
whom he was anxious to brand as advocates of lawlessness, 
disunion, and negro equality. It suited his purpose to re- 
gard all who questioned the infallibility of the decision as 
anarchists who resisted the Supreme Court, and by raising a 
cloud of race antipathy and partisan rancor he sought to di- 
vert attention from his more difficult task of making the de- 
cision fit into his own doctrine of popular sovereignty. In 
his speech at Springfield, June 12th, he covered the opinion 
of Judge Taney with wreaths of eulogy while at the same 
time arguing that he had saved the principle of his pet dog- 
ma, whereas he had saved only the shadow of it. Nor should 
it pass unnoted that he here distinctly announced what was 
afterwards known as his " Freeport doctrine," and which 
was supposed to have lost him the South. Speaking of the 
right of a master to his slave in any Territory, which the court 
had upheld, he said: 

"While the right continues in full force under the guaran- 
tees of the Constitution, and cannot be divested or alien- 
ated by an act of Congress, it necessarily remains a bar- 
ren and worthless right, unless sustained, protected, and 
enforced by appropriate police regulations and local legis- 
lation, prescribing adequate remedies for its violation. 
These regulations and remedies must necessarily depend 
entirely upon the will and wishes of the people of the 
Territory, as they can only be prescribed by the local leg- 
islatures. . . . Hence the great principle of popular sov- 
ereignty and self-government is sustained and firmly es- 
tablished by the authority of tliis decision. . . . [Nor did 
he forget to ask:] "When you confer upon the African race 
the privileges of citizenship, and put them on an equality 
with white men at the polls, in the jury box, on the bench, 
in the Executive chair, and in the councils of the nation, 
upon what principle will you deny their equality at the 
festive board and in the domestic circle? 

Naturally such a mixture of sophistry and prejudice fanned 
the Republicans to a white heat of indignation, and their 



118 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

words took fire. Herndon devoted several editorials to a 
review of the speech, or rather to a review of Douglas him- 
self, whom he flayed unmercifully; and an excerpt from one 
of them may serve as an example of his editorial writing, 
and as a faithful picture of the seething state of the public 
mind. "Writing in the Daily Bepublica7i of Springfield, under 
date of June 15th, he said: 

This speech of the Senator is his great central speech of 
1857, which is to wave off to the shores of the State, pre- 
paratory to the Senatorial struggle of 1859. He is com- 
mencing the canvass early — is intensifying the heating 
and boiling strife, hoping thereby to allay the uprising 
bubbles. Poor man ! We pity him ! Does he suppose that 
the children of that people who in the reign of Henry I. 
enacted and passed this law — ' ' Let no man, for the fu- 
ture, presume to carry on the practice of selling men in 
market like brute-beasts, which has hitherto been the cus- 
tom of England" — will prove less "stubborn" than 
then for the rights of man? Poor creature of the Black 
Power ! Does he dream that the men who sprang from the 
sires who declared that " resistance to tyrants was obedi- 
ence to God," will be less " pestiferous " and " unruly " 
than when this immortal truth was uttered? Poor tool of 
Southern despots ! Does he suppose that the children of 
those men who enunciated the God-generated truth " that 
all men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights;" will basely hug 
their chains at the bidding of a demagogue? 

In truth the Douglas now is not the Douglas of 1850 
or 1854. He is conscious of a power — the power of the 
people outraged, betrayed, wronged; and so he did not 
leap upon the stand with his accustomed force and defiant 
tone; he is somewhat cut; he is full of seeming humility; 
his long whip fore-finger did not crack so commandingly 
as was its wont. He appears pinched, cramped, shriveled 
up ; his squat form is low and his voice harsh. When he 
would elevate his form to his inner thought his person 
would draw in, as if touched on the shoulder by the ghost- 
finger of Brown or some other patriot-spirit of Kansas, 
who had sealed his life by the blood of liberty. His gait 
and position were uneasy, as if there were beneath him the 
rattling bones of murdered patriots, struggling that they 
might rise up and confront in honorable combat the traitor 
to his country and the universal foe of man. Not for this 



HEENDON AND PARKER 119 

whole globe with all its wealth, pomp and gold, would we 
be Douglas — the iron-ball benator from Illinois. We will 
review his speech more particularly in a day or so. In the 
meantime we shall study Douglas and his fate. 

" Let tyrants, who hate truth and fear the free, 
Know that to rule in slavery and error 
For mere ends of personal pomp and power, 
Is such a sin as doth deserve a hell 
To itself sole." 

Herndon did not disguise his contempt for Douglas, both 
personally and politically, and whenever he wrote or spoke 
about him his words took the form of impassioned and re- 
lentless philippic. This dislike was partly temperamental, 
partly spiritual, and it became more intense every year as 
he saw Douglas playing politics with the most sacred princi- 
ples; though, as we shall see, in his last years Herndon was 
willing to modify some of his early judgments, but to the end 
he sincerely believed that Douglas was a demagogue, all the 
more dangerous because of his shrewd audacity, his resource- 
fulness, and his personal power. The article just quoted, 
which reads more like an oration than an editorial, was 
clipped and sent in a letter to Mr. Parker, who preserved it 
among his papers. The accompanying letter was even more 
severe : 

Springfield, 111., June 17, 1857. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Friend : — Enclosed is a piece of my scribbling for 
our Repiiblican. I send to you, in place of a letter, this 
political article. I have been writing eight or ten articles 
for the Republican, reviewing Douglas's late speech. They 
are said to be good. I do not send this to ' ' show off, ' ' but 
to let you know what I am doing. Hope you will like the 
tone of the articles. . . . Douglas spoke here as represented : 
Lincoln will answer. It will he an answer. I know both 
men well, for long, long years. Lincoln is a gentleman ; 
Douglas is — well, what shall I say? — an unscrupulous 
dog. He is a hybrid ; Nature says to him Perish and Rot ! 
What is the matter with you? Are you offended? 

Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

Lincoln did make answer on June 26th, calmly analyzing and 
dissecting the speech of Douglas as though he were arguing 



120 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

a case in court. Herndon seems to have been disappointed 
with the temperature of the reply, which, beyond its dia- 
lectical skill in making Douglas undo Douglas, and a notable 
passage about negro equality, lacked fire. One has only to 
read the speech side by side with the editorial to see the con- 
trast between the two men; one quick, impulsive, and often- 
times precipitate, the other coolly piling up his wrath and 
strength for a future sweeping and gigantic blow. Said 
Lincoln : 

Judge Douglas does not discuss the merits of the decision, 
and in that respect I shall follow his example, because I 
could no more improve on McLean and Curtis than he 
could on Taney. He denounces all who question the cor- 
rectness of the decision, as offering violent resistance to it. 
But who resists it? Who has, in spite of the decision, de- 
clared Dred Scott free, and resisted the authority of his 
master over him? . . . But we think the Dred Scott de- 
cision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has 
often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we 
can to have it overrule this. We offer no resistance to it. 
. . . Wliy, this same Supreme Court once decided a na- 
tional bank to be constitutional; but General Jackson, as 
President of the United States, disregarded the decision, 
and vetoed a bill for a recharter, . . . Again and again 
I have heard Judge Douglas denounce that bank decision 
and applaud General Jackson for disregarding it. It 
would be interesting for him to look over his recent speech- 
es, and see how exactly his fierce philippics against us . . . 
fall upon his own head. 

Three years ago. Judge Douglas brought forward his 
famous Nebraska Bill. The country was at once ablaze. . . . 
Since then he has seen himself superseded in a Presidential 
nomination, . . . and he has seen that successful rival con- 
stitutionally elected, not by the strength of friends, but 
by the division of adversaries, being in a popular minority 
of nearly four hundred thousand votes. He has seen his 
chief aids in his own State, Shields and Richardson, polit- 
ically speaking, successively tried, convicted, and executed 
for an offence not their own, but his. And now lie sees his 
oivn case standing next on the docket for trial. 

Now I protest against the counterfeit logic which con- 
cludes that, because I do not want a black woman for a 
slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. I need not 



HEBNDON AND PARKER 121 

have her for either. I can just let her alone. In some respects 
she certainly is not my equal; but in her natural right to 
eat the bread she earns with her own hands, without asking 
leave of anyone else, she is my equal and the equal of all 
others. . . . But Judge Douglas is especially horrified 
at the thought of the mixing of blood by the white and 
black races. ... On this point we fully agree with the 
Judge, and when he shall show that his policy is better adapt- 
ed to prevent amalgamation than ours, we shall drop ours 
and adopt his. Let us see. . . , Statistics show that slavery 
is the greatest source of amalgamation, and next to it, not 
the elevation, but the degradation of the free blacks. Yet 
Judge Douglas dreads the slightest restraints on the spread 
of slavery, and the slightest human recognition of the ne- 
gro, as tending horribly to amalgamation! 

As Douglas went on with his speaking tour, by some slip of 
type or lip he began to misquote the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, making it read " all men were created equal," in- 
stead of " are created equal." Herndon was quick to make 
note of the discrepancy in his editorials, charging that Doug- 
las was deliberately perverting the words and making one 
speech for the North and another for the South. It seems 
that one rendering appeared in the Springfield State Regis- 
ter, another in the Missouri Bepuhlican, and still another in 
the Chicago Times, which was singular to say the least. The 
State Register explained that it was due to a typographical 
error sufSciently obvious to any one not " triply endowed 
with the manners of a ruffian, the honesty of a rogue, and the 
intellect of a fool. ' ' But Herndon persisted, and indeed made 
out a very good case, which he used after this manner in the 
Daily Republican, June 20th: 

" When shall we three meet again? 
In thunder, lightning, or in rain! " 

In the year 1854, Mr. Petit, a sham Democratic Senator, 
rose in the United States Senate, and said that the Declara- 
tion of American Independence was " a self-evident lie." 
An itinerant nigger preacher, Mr. Ross, a sham Democratic 
high priest, so late as 1857, says that the Declaration of 
Independence is absurd; and now, in the month of June, 
A. D. 1857, here in this city. Senator Douglas says the Dec- 



122 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

laration of American liberty is untrue. He is polite in 
his epithets. 

We are surprised that Douglas should follow a negro 
man, a black nigger priest, and pronounce the glorious Dec- 
laration of American Independence an untruth — a self- 
evident falsehood — a lie and a political farce which has 
played out its day upon the boards. However, ]\Ir. Douglas 
did it, and we appeal to the audience who heard his speech 
here in the capitol, June, A. D. 1857, and beneath the stars 
and stripes floating proudly above him. We appeal to his 
printed speech for substantial proof of this charge. We 
are willing to acknowledge that he did not say it was false, 
though he said it was not true generally ; but he intended 
to convey to the uninitiated that it was a palpable lie. 
Petit — Ross — Douglas, 

" When shall we three meet again? 
In thunder, lightning or in rain ! ' ' 

Herndon sent this editorial, with others, to Parker, along with 
a rapid fire of letters urging him to use them against Douglas 
in New England, wliich Parker very properly neglected to do. 
The letters, marked ' ' private, ' ' were brief, excited and hasty, 
and may be summarized under one date as follows : 

Springfield, 111., July 4, 1857. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir: — Thanks for yours of the 24th inst. I did 
as you requested — gave Mr. Lincoln your best wishes. 
He returns them. I send you this day one of Mr. Lincoln 's 
speeches in the State Journal. Douglas's speech was a 
low, gutter-rabble rousing speech. Lincoln's was gentle- 
manly, strong, and conclusive. The difference is very ap- 
parent. Sorry you are sick. 

I am still at duty in the ocean of Illinois politics. Doug- 
las has made a speech here as you know, but he has made 
two different editions, one for the North, one for the 
South ; one in the State Register, one in the Missouri Re- 
puhlican; different in substance, in essence. It ought to 
kill him. Do you know how it will affect him — quoted 
Declaration of Independence two ways — not an accident, 
done for effect, thought it would not be discovered. . . . 
Let's kill off the great Dough Face! ... I want to let you 
see where Douglas is drifting. I now send you his last bid, 
and that is no less than utter prostration of human liberty 
and rights in Kansas. What a scoundrel ! After reading 



HERNDON AND PARKER 123 

hand to Phillips. Good God ! are not the Democrats crazy ? 
I herewith send you a forgery on Lincoln and Trumbull : 
it appeared in the State Register July 2, 1857 ; that of the 
Times on July 1st. The Register article, in double col- 
umn, is a base, wilful forgery — never was in either of 
the speeches. Do not fail to keep what I send you till you 
or Mr. Phillips let off a gun. 

Yours truly, "W. H. Herndon. 

The " forgery " referred to was an attempt of the State 
Register to array Lincoln against Trumbull, using the ' ' dead- 
ly parallel " to show from their own words that one advised 
submission to the Dred Scott decision, and the other resist- 
ance to it. Such apparent conflict of opinion between '' these 
two great black Republican pop guns " filled the Register 
with glee, and it w^as unable to tell which was '' the true 
black Republican, and which the bogus." Such tactics only 
amused Lincoln, while they angered Herndon almost beyond 
measure; but a more distressing matter now engaged the 
latter : 

Springfield, 111., July 29, 1857. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I send you to-day three speeches ; one by 
Senator Douglas ; one by Senator Trumbull ; and one by ^^ 
Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln has gone to New York or he 
would have sent them to you himself. However, I will do 
as well for this small duty. We are cutting the iron-chain 
Democracy to the quick : they feel it ; they show they feel 
it — show it in looks, acts, maneuvers. Douglas has con- 
fessed his blunder to his private friends, who have by de- 
sign or by accident let it leak out. One thing is assuredly 
certain : our country people say, irrespective of party, that 
Douglas was whipped for once. I have heard this " many 
and many a time." 

When I wrote you last I did not think I should write 
you so soon again ; yet such unheard-of proceedings have 
taken place here, that I cannot refrain. A slave was ar- 
rested in Logan County and brought here for trial. He 
was poor as a matter of course, and I freely volunteered 
for the poor fellow ; but in doing so I came near having 
my own rights stricken down in court by my own brother. 
It was contended that I had no right to appear in court 
for the negro. I repelled this in strong language, if I may 
say so. The poor negro was tried and sent South — could 



^ 



124 LINCOLN AND HERXDOX 

not prevent it. You cannot do anything when the iron- 
chain logic is around the man and fetters are on his limbs. 
I send this to let you see that I am not afraid to do openly 
what I write privately. Look at it from this point and 
this point alone. Yours truly, "W. H. Herndon. 

P. S. The reason why I wrote to you and said '' pri- 
vate " not long since was on Mr. Lincoln's account, not 
my own. Base politicians would charge him with sending 
you matter. That was the reason and that alone that made 
me say " private." 

No doubt Lincoln, knowing that Douglas was eager to link 
him with the Abolitionists, and thus fasten the odium of that 
name upon him, had warned Herndon about urging Mr. 
Parker to attack Douglas for his local tricks. At last Mr. 
Parker found time for a brief reply, commending Herndon 
for his efforts in behalf of the fugitive slave and expressing 
his own disgust at the Dred Scott decision : 

Newton Center, Mass., Aug. 9, 1857. 
Dear Mr. Herndon: 

I thank you for sending me the slips from the news- 
paper, and still more for the noble defence you made of 
the rights of the poor, unfortunate man. Of course it was 
unavailing! " On the side of the oppressor there was 
power." The Democratic party is in office and it has the 
same relation to progress in America that the Roman Cath- 
olic Church has in Europe. We can do nothing until that 
party is broken to fragments and ground to powder. You 
see all the Democratic conventions in all the States, pass 
resolutions in favor of the Dred Scott decision, with its 
falsification of testimony and its prostitution of law. The 
Supreme Court will decide that it is unconstitutional to pro- 
hibit the importation of slaves, and the Democrats will en- 
dorse the decision. Yours truly, Theo. Parker. 

In more than one brief note Parker had sent his best wishes 
to Lincoln, though the name of Lincoln does not appear in 
the long list of his political correspondents. This would be 
stranger if Parker had not had in Herndon a mediator 
through whom he could express his approval of Lincoln's 
course from time to time; at other times his doubts. Ap- 
parently they never met, but a few months later we find 
Parker standing out emphatically against the attempt of 



HERNDON AND PARKER 125 

Greeley to induce the Republicans of Illinois to desert Lin- 
coln. Replying to the above letter, Mr, Herndon wrote in a 
mood of mingled hope and gloom — hope for the future of 
his party in Illinois, with dark forebodings as to the future 
of the nation : 

Springfield, 111., Sept. 8, 1857. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I received your very encouraging letter 
some time since, for which I am obliged. I was in court 
when it came, or should have answered sooner. ... In 
attending to the poor negro's case I felt I was doing my 
duty, and did not care for personal consequences to my- 
self. I simply asked myself this question, " Is it right? " 
Having determined that I went into the matter with all my 
energy and ability, though little and small. Some say it 
was bold for this section and not very prudent, as I was a 
kind of Republican school-master, or what not: others say 
it was outrageously wrong, as it will set a bad example to 
young law;\'ers who will follow. God grant they may ever 
do so. Others, the good and the true, cry " Well done," 
and so the world wags. 

I have been philosophizing on our State lately, and have 
come to this conclusion: that Illinois is forever gone from 
the iron-chain Democracy, if the Anti-Slavery men act 
prudently in putting up brave and good men. The reason 
why I say Illinois is gone, " hook and line," from the 
Democracy, is this: five out of every seven Fillmore men 
will go to the Republican cause : there is about 30,000 of 
them, and gi\'ing the Republicans 21,000 and the Demo- 
crats 9,000, and taking Buchanan's majority at 7,000, we 
have the tyrants on the hip, with a majority in our favor 
of about 7,000. When we see immigrants coming in, and 
knowing that four out of five of them are for us, we can- 
not doubt longer how Illinois is to stand politically in the 
future. I have talked with others and they wholly agree 
with me. Some go farther and are more enthusiastic in 
their calculations than I am. The north of our State is 
filling up with an unprecedented rapidity, and that sec- 
tion is wholly free, as you know. The South is filling up 
but slowly, and those who come are generally for freedom 
— a majority are so. 

The late negro murders — butcheries — have done us 
good: it has waked up the idle and indifferent to see. What 
is to become of this land ? I see, but will not talk even to 



126 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

you. Kansas will be shot into the confederacy, over the 
heads of the Free States, a kind of free-slave State — a 
mongrel thing, abnormal and un-godly in appearance. Bu- 
chanan is this day no better than " poor Pierce." His 
administration crouches at the tyrant feet of the slave- 
driver and whines to hear the word, " Go bull." This is 
even so, and no man who reads, thinks, philosophizes on 
history and nature, can help seeing the "Red Sea" over 
which our people must pass. It is terrible to think about. 

Nature will have her equilibrium. In proportion as we 
become civilized North; in proportion to our love of free- 
dom North, just in the same degree does the South bar- 
barize and hate Liberty. We widen and deepen in our 
views; the line of separation becomes sharp and well-de- 
fined, and out of this come hate and bloody war. Can 
anything escape this? Nothing! God alone, even if he 
desired to do so, cannot turn away the catastrophe. His- 
torians in the future will simply write, " Horror! Hor- 
ror! " 

Are you writing anything soon to be published? I 
hope you are ; but first I hope you are entirely well, or fast 
getting so. Hope soon to hear you thunder. Phillips is 
climbing, is he not ? Hurrah for Phillips ! 

Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

And the historian of today does marvel that a people so homo- 
geneous and so happy, so wedded in historic memories, found 
no better way of getting rid of African slavery than by going 
to war about it. He marvels that a people so prosperous as 
the people of the South, li\dng the ideal life of patrician and 
planter, should have so mismeasured the forces of the time 
and the movements of the world. Men North and South saw 
the conflict coming, but none the less they flung wisdom to the 
winds, as at a later hour they drew their SAVords and threw 
the scabbards away. 



CHAPTER V 

The Revolt of Douglas 

After all, history is only past politics, and we have now to deal 
with a crisis which historians of this period too often slur 
over in their haste to recite the story of the great debates. 
Those burning pictures in the letters to Parker were as much 
before the eyes of Lincoln as of Herndon, and they had l— 
drawn from him that radical Bloomington speech in which, 
for the first time in public, he had used his striking figure 
of the house di_vided_a^ainst itself ; though at the request of a 
less radical friend, Judge Dickey, he had promised not to *-~ 
repeat it during the contest of 1856. Time had more than 
justified his words, for the gulf of cleavage was becoming 
every day wider and more angry; but just when the hour 
had fully come for a decisive word, he was appalled by the 
fact of schism in the ranks of his own party. 

More surprising still, as if planned by that mocking irony 
whereby politics makes strange yoke-fellows, the cause of 
this schism was none other than Douglas himself, whose fate 
it was to be " the Genius of Discord " incarnate. Unable to 
manage two horses going in opposite directions, that daring 
and ambitious rider was actually trying to harness a Repub- 
lican steed to his chariot and drive to victory. That he did 
not succeed in his bold and desperate attempt, but fell at 
last bruised and defeated in the arena, was due to the cour- 
age, sagacity, and unwavering fidelity of the Republican party 
in Illinois, led by Lincoln and his friends. The tale of this 
adventure is more exciting than a romance, since it made 
Illinois the pivotal State in the North, as South Carolina may 
be said to have been the pivotal State in the South, in the 
contest that followed. 



128 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



Once more Kansas came to the fore, and again the nation was 
torn by angry emotions, while an honest, but timid and pli- 
able old man sat in the White House. Emboldened by the 
Dred Scott decision, the leaders of the South resolved afresh 
to foist slavery upon that unhappy Territory, and thus add 
another Slave State to the Union. This had to be done, if 
done at all, against the will of the people ; for by this time the 
Free-State men so vastly outnumbered the slavery contingent, 
that even the pro-Slavery party had to admit it. So, in 1857, 
the Slavery party made its last desperate attempt to capture 
the Territory by fraud, and the folly of the Free-State men 
opened the way. It was a terrible blunder, with consequences 
that were far-reaching for Kansas and for the nation. 

Two years before Lincoln had predicted, in his letter to 
Joshua Speed, that such would be the phase of the Kansas 
question when it became a practical one, and his prophecy 
had come true. At an election of delegates to a constitutional 
convention the Free-State men, very unwisely, refused to 
vote, on the ground that the number of delegates was based 
on a defective census and registration. This gave the con- 
vention, which met at Lecompton, wholly into the hands of 
the pro-Slavery party, and they drew the constitvition as 
they wanted it. When the instrument was offered to the 
people, they were not allowed to vote simply yea or nay, but 
only " For the constitution with slavery," or " For the con- 
stitution with no slavery." Either way the constitution 
would be adopted, and should the constitution with no slavery 
be ratified, a clause of the schedule still guaranteed " the 
right of property in slaves now in this Territory." So that 
the choice offered to an opponent of slavery was between a 
document throwing down all barriers against slavery, and a 
document which sanctioned and protected the full possession 
of slaves in the Territory, with no assurance as to the status 
of the natural increase of those slaves. Again the Free-State 
men refrained from voting, and a few more than six thousand 
votes were declared to have been cast " For the constitution 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 129 

with slavery." Over one-third of the votes east were proved 
to be fraudulent, but as the residue still exceeded the requisite 
majority the scheme had the disguise of legal technicality. 

Finding themselves tricked by a gambler's device, the Free- 
State men had in the meantime abandoned their policy of non- 
resistance, so far at least as to take part in the election of a 
new Territorial Legislature. They had also decided to make 
an irregular opportunity^ to vote for or against the constitu- 
tion ; but this time the pro-Slavery men, considering the matter 
already legally settled, refused to vote. The result was a 
majority of ten thousand against the constitution, and an 
equally decided majority in both chambers of the Legislature. 
The President had solemnly pledged himself to accept the 
result of the popular vote ; but now he was confronted by two 
popular votes, one having the better technical showing, while 
the other undeniably expressed the will of a large majority of 
the lawful voters. Such was the posture of affairs when 
Congress convened. 

Douglas had made himself sponsor for justice to Kansas, 
not only by his advocacy of "popular sovereignty" in the 
abstract, but by the fact that he had become personally re- 
sponsible for the conduct of John C. Calhoun, the leader of the 
Lecompton party — having secured for him, through Governor 
Walker,^ the office of Surveyor General of the Territory. He 
had swallowed the Dred Scott decision without wincing, de- 
nouncing all who questioned its righteousness as revolutionists, 
while at the same time showing how it might be thwarted by 
unfriendly local legislation ; but the Lecompton outrage nau- 
seated him, and he let it be known to his friends that he would 
oppose the admission of Kansas, either as Free or Slave State, 
on a constitution adopted by such methods. Rumors were 
afloat that the Lecompton scheme was approved by the admin- 

1 Eobert J. Walker, former Secretary of the Treasury, a Southern 
man appointed by Mr. Buchanan and endorsed by Douglas. When 
Governor Walker was on his way to Kansas he passed through Chicago, 
and Senator Douglas consulted him about submitting the constitution 
of Kansas to a fair vote; and it was so agreed. ~ Covode Eeport, pp. 
105-6. Speech of Douglas at Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 14, 1860. 



130 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

istration, and Douglas hastened to Washington, determined 
to know the mind of the President at once ; his own was made 
up. Their interview, as the Senator recounted it, was dramatic 
indeed when he found that Buchanan was under the spell of 
a group of Southern men who were bent on making Kansas 
a Slave State at any cost. Whereat Douglas threw down the 
gauntlet, announcing with great earnestness that he would 
fight the scheme publicly and to the bitter end. 

"Mr. Douglas," said the President, rising to his feet ex- 
citedly, "I desire you to remember that no Democrat ever 
yet differed from an administration of his own choice with- 
out being crushed. Beware of the fate of Tallmadge and 
Rives!" 

"Mr. President," rejoined Douglas also rising, "I vsdsh 
you to remember that General Jackson is dead ! " ^ 

Such a retort — contrasting the weakest of Presidents with 
the most headstrong — was all the more stinging when we 
recall that, from 1852 to 1860, Douglas was by far the most 
noteworthy figure on the national political scene. Webster, 
Clay, and Calhoun had passed off the stage. Seward, Sum- 
ner, and Chase, though influential and able, had not yet come 
to their own. This interval of eight years belonged to Doug- 
las, and it was neither vanity nor vehemence for him to imagine 
that he could defy the President. We have also to remember 
that he and Buchanan had been rivals for the same high office, 
the latter securing it partly because, as Minister to England, 
he had not been involved in the Nebraska agitation, and partly 
because he was less aggressive and more pliable. Douglas, 
whatever else he may have been, was not of that stripe. Astute 
and ambitious, he was at once masterful and persuasive, a 
born leader of men, skilled in all the devious arts of politics, 
and an orator who combined "something of the impressiveness 
of Webster with the roughness and readiness of the stump 
speaker. ' ' ^ His break with the President meant a battle royal 

1 Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, pp. 327-8 (1908). Also, 
Milwaukee speech of Senator Douglas, Oct. 14, 1860, Chicago Timet 
and Herald, Oct. 17, 1860. 

^ Alraliam Lincoln, by J. T. Morse, Vol. I, p. 106 (1896). 



THE REVOLT OF DOUOLAS 131 

to the last ditch, for never was there a more resourceful or a 
more plucky fighter. 

On the evening of December 9th, Douglas backed up his 
threat by a speech in the Senate, and so eager was the desire 
to hear him, that, from the time the Senate adjourned in the 
afternoon, until it re-assembled in the evening, the people kept 
their seats. For three hours he held his audience in rapt at- 
tention, broken only by peals of applause, while with more 
than his usual gravity and earnestness he denounced the Le- 
compton fraud, appealed for fair play, and flayed the President 
for attempting to dictate the duties of a Senator, His sense of 
justice Avas too deeply outraged for him to remain in a con- 
ciliatory mood, and at times his vehemence carried him further 
than he had meant to go. He compared the Kansas election 
to that held under the First Consul, when, so his enemies 
averred. Napoleon addressed his troops after this fashion: 
**Now, my soldiers, you are to go to the election and vote freely 
just as you please. If you vote for Napoleon, all is well ; vote 
against him, and you are to be instantly shot!" That was a 
fair election ! 

This election, said Douglas with bitter irony, is to be equally 
fair I All men in favor of the constitution may vote for it 
— all men against it shall not vote at all ! Why not let 
them vote against it? . . . Consult the poll books on a fair 
election held in pursuance of law; consult private citizens 
from there; consult whatever source of information you 
please, and you get the same answer — that this constitu- 
tion does not embody the will, is not the act and deed of the 
people, does not represent their wishes; and hence, I deny 
your right, your authority, to make it their organic law. . . . 
"Will you force it on them against their will simply because 
they would have voted it down if you had consulted them? 
If you will, are you going to force it upon them under the 
plea of leaving them perfectly free to form and regulate 
their own domestic institutions in their own way? Is that 
the mode in which I am called upon to carry out the prin- 
ciple of self-government and popular sovereignty in the Ter- 
ritories? ... If Kansas wants a Slave constitution she has a 
right to it, if she wants a Free-State constitution she has a 



/ 



132 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

right to it. It is none of my business which way the slavery 
clause is decided. 1 care not ivhether it is voted up or down. 

Lincoln, in his back office, made note of this last sentence for 
future reference ; and he thereby put his pen upon the fatal 
flaw in the career of Senator Douglas. All during this heroic 
fight for the freedom of Kansas Douglas declared that, had the 
people of that Territory decided in favor of slavery, he would 
just as earnestly and persistently fight against the Free-Soilers 
for the admission of the Territory as a Slave State. To the 
question of the right and wrong of slavery, so far as this con- 
troversy was concerned, he was entirely indifferent. Unfor- 
tunately he remained indifferent, as though utterly blind to the 
moral issue involved in the very existence of slavery. None 
the less he did fight, consistently and magnificently, for the 
rights of the Free-State men of Kansas, many of whom were 
Douglas Democrats, and the Lecompton constitution was buried 
out of sight. It is true, as Lincoln afterwards said, that the 
Republicans in Congress gave most of the votes necessary to 
defeat it; yet it is also true that but for Douglas the infamy 
would not have been defeated.^ His victory over Buchanan was 
decisive, extending even to the parlors of social rivalry, where 
the gracious and brilliant Adele Douglas out-shone the hand- 
some but somewhat reserved niece of the President, who served 
as "first lady of the land" for her bachelor uncle.^ 

Nevertheless, there were those who saw not the faintest gleam 
of high, disinterested motive in the audacious revolt of the Sen- 
ator from Illinois. Men like Lincoln, Herndon, and Gustave 
Koerner, who had known Douglas for years, saw in his action 
only the first move in some far-reaching political game, the exact 
nature of which they did not at first divine. Herndon, writing 
to Parker after a long silence, gave his view of the situation, 
which may be taken as representing Lincoln's view of it ; for he 
was closer to the mind of Lincoln than any other man, and could 
report him, not always correctly, yet with much shrewdness and 
intution : 



^Stephen A. Douglas, by Clark E. Carr, pp. 62-74 (1909). 

2 Beminiscences of Peace and War, by Mrs. Eoger Pryor, Chap. IV. 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 133 

Springfield, 111., December 19, 1857. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — It has been a long time since I addressed you 
a letter, and supposing you are rested I propose to slip a word 
to you. These are curious, mysterious days. What do you 
think of Douglas's late strike from his masters? We out 
here have this view : He, Douglas, is U. S. Senator, and 
still wants to be. If he go the Lecompton swindle he is dead 
in Illinois ; and being defeated here, and for that office, he is 
dead everywhere. North and South; it is a test for the 
future. However, if he "bulges" against the Lecompton 
fraud, he is at all events gone in the South. Hope springs 
up and comes to his despair. He says this : 

"I see my way clear. The North has got the majority 
in the electoral college, and if I oppose this despotism and 
strike as a man, good, brave and true, I can get the solid 
North. By doing this my first expectation is that I can get 
back in the Senate, and in the meantime I will go gradually 
towards Republicanism, and finally deeper. That won't do d^^ 
right now. I know the law of the gradual development of '^ 
ideas. Before 1860 Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, 
Washington, and probably more States will have to come into 
this confederacy, and these will give such an overwhelming 
majority to the North, that it can beat the South. I am for 
Freedom, Liberty! Mr. Parker or Wendell Phillips wor- 
ships no more sincerely or intensely at the shrine of Liberty 
than I. Hurrah for Liberty ! It is eternal ; an attribute of 
God given to man as an inalienable right ! Blessed day, I 
am safe! Glory!" 

I have no doubt but that this is the Senator's reason — 
none in the world. But the question is, will he, "like a 
man," face the music, and so keep faced? There is the rub. 
I have no confidence in him morally, mentally, politically, or 
otherwise. His friends here do not know how to look upon 
this change. However, they say this : ' ' Republicanism 
always before Southern tyranny; the South is nothing but 
a despotism." They do this with great energy and em- 
phasis. And thank the bright stars for so much! Buch- 
anan has numerous friends here; Douglas has more. The 
war between them is fierce, fiery, full of hate. Douglas will 
not reap any advantage from this move, though Freedom 
will. Mark that. The Buchanan faction here will kill him 
for the Senatorial seat. He has slipped, I think: it is too 
much now to say this will be so. There are not facts enough 
out yet to declare this is and must be so ; it looks that way. 



m LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

My notion of this move, if not a base trick, is this : Doug- 
las will be a ranting Free-State 's man — hot and angrily so. 
There are but two sides. If he breaks loose from the South, 
he must become Republican, or go deeper and eclipse Phil- 
lips. Tell Mr. Phillips to guard his laurels : say to him 
that his friend Herndon says, "Phillips, you have a com- 
petitor in the field." Be not surprised at what Douglas 
does — either one way or the other. Douglas speaks glibly, 
already, of the ' ' fundamental principles of Liberty. ' ' Watch 
the blazing comet. There will be many foul disclosures in 
this fight. They will tell each other of treachery — of each 
other's rascality : they will taunt each other, and the age and 
freedom will profit by the quarrel. Robbers have fallen out 
over the distribution of their bloody booty. The quarrel 
will be long and bitter, wild and ferocious. Let honest men 
look on, and laugh or weep, as suits their respective natures. 
I shall mourn, yet rejoice. 

The South will "snub" Douglas, and to defend or re- 
venge himself he will fight back, and in doing so he must feel 
around for "clubs." The only clubs are, first, Republican 
ones ; and, second, strong Abolition ones : the first are com- 
posed simply of policy, the second of world-wide truths — 
eternal as world-wide. Look out! If Douglas is fighting 
for revenge its laws will keep him destructive, and so look 
out ! It is not virtue that moves him. If this move of 
Douglas is simply one of revenge, I do not know what to say. 
Too soon to say absolutely this or that. I think, however, 
that the first part of this letter is the only correct view of 
things, so far as they are developed. Our June and July 
fight here with Douglas has opened his eyes. Do you re- 
member that his Times said that the "Lecompton constitu- 
tion might as well be submitted to the Feegee tribes as to 
the people of Kansas?" What is your opinion of things? 
How do the Massachusetts men look upon this ' ' squabble ? ' ' 
Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

Give Mr. Phillips my best respects, not forgetting your 
wife. Show this letter to any person who wants to know 
how we feel out West. 

Only three Democratic Senators dared to stand with Douglas 
— Broderick of California, Pugh of Ohio, and Stuart of Mich- 
igan — as against the solid phalanx of his party. Green, Big- 
ler, and Fitch in turn assailed him on the floor of the Senate, 
trying to read him out of the party into the ranks of the ' ' Black 



THE RE VOLT OF DOUGLAS 135 

Republicans." These attacks only roused Douglas to more 
bitter invective against the Lecompton scheme as "a trick, a 
fraud upon the rights of the people." If he had misjudged 
the temper of his party in the Senate, he had at least read 
aright the drift of public sentiment in Illinois, for, of the 
fifty-six Democratic papers in the State, only one ventured to 
condone the Lecompton outrage. Writing one week later, 
Herndon continued his prognostication, astutely divining the 
drift of Douglas towards the Republican ranks : 

Springfield, 111., December 26, 1857. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I wrote you some few days since, and hope 
you will take it easy till I give you my speculations and the 
ideas of others, in the home of Douglas and in reference to 
him and his course. It will be here that his intentions will 
leak out, or be made known before they are blurted wild and 
free in Washington. I have some warm personal friends 
in the Democratic camp, and some kindred there. So I 
watch things closely. It is said here that Douglas intends 
to stand firm on this Kansas-Nebraska Bill ; but those who 
say so know nothing about the wiry, deep, sagacious schemer. 
Whoso stands on this Kansas squatter sovereignty, expect- 
ing thereby to appease the North or South, wiU fall between 
the ' ' upper and nether mill-stones " to be ground to XJOwder. 
Douglas is sagacious — is not a martyr, nor has he an idea 
of being one. Were he Phillips or yourself it might be so ; 
it would be the same, if he were Garrison ; but there is no 
martyr in the flesh of Douglas. If he supposes that he can 
say, "the fundamental principles of Liberty," and insinuate 
the justice of rebellion and revolution in Kansas by the peo- 
ple, as he did say and insinuate lately, openly in the halls 
of Congress, and still expect to appease the South ; if, I say, 
he thinks this, I will write Douglas down as an "ass." He 
is not, however. He is sagacious, energetic, "wicked," as 
you say, and he looks and will eternally leap for power. 
Its laws will control him, as justice Garrison, or truth Phil- 
lips, or religion you. 

Douglas must sweep the field I pointed out to you sooner 
or later — say 1860 or 1864. He may not move in a perfect 
elliptic ; there will be some perturbations behind that red 
infamy, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill ; yet the ends of the circle 
will meet. So says nature ; for her mental laws are as uni- 



]36 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

versal and necessary as the laws of the physical world. 
Douglas is this day Republican in heart and head, though 
not from honest, deep, manly convictions ; he is so because 
power lies there, in the North, and where power is there is 
the political buzzard. Some say that he will force Buchanan 
and his cabinet to swallow his present interpretation of the 
Kansas fraud. What! Do they suppose that this is not 
defeat to the South, and defeat to the South forever ? Does 
any sane man suppose that the South will give up this great 
crisis without a struggle, to rot and to die inch by inch, 
stinking in the nostrils of the nations? Those who think 
so ought to have "fool" branded on their paws. 

]\Ir. Douglas will in due time become a Republican and 
attempt to lead our forces, and I may have to vote for the 
wretch. I will do so to kill a worse thing — slavery. This, 
Douglas will do by continuous, gradual slides, and such a 
sliding scale the world never saw. This is his present inten- 
tion, or he sinks into that gulf where the nations can never 
hear his howl ; and from the depths of which the whisperings 
of his conscience will scarcely ever reach the throne of God. 
He must go South or come North, radically. He sees and 
knows where he is : he understands his position and its dan- 
ger well. He has studied the alternatives "piously." It 
may be true that this will take place : either Douglas must 
come to Republicans, or the Republicans must go to Douglas. 
No doubt but that Douglas will trjj to draiv us to his support ; 
but this will never be. When Douglas sees this he will be 
ready to take the leap with a sonorous shout, "Hurrah for 
Liberty!" Won't that be odd? All these late moves are 
compliments to human rights, to man's freedom and God's 
eternal justice. God speed their quick evolution and devel- 
opment ! 

I notice in the winds several good signs "round here," 

and all about us. Democrats come to us and borrow Seward's 

^speeches, Sumner's, your Nebraska speech, Chase's, etc.; 

^ and they read them and shout for Liberty as I did, when I 

was called "crazy." The world does move. 

Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

Excuse me, forgive my two long letters. Show to friends 
if you wish. Tell Phillips to sit right down and get out his 
speeches — now is the time. 

No doubt Lincoln, with his keen eye for the logic of events, saw 
the situation even more clearly than his partner ; but he said 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 137 

little, while watching intently to see whither Douglas was tend- 
ing. The two letters of Herndon were indeed remarkable as 
forecasts of the immediate future, though sureh^ they were 
unjust in attributing every move of Douglas to motives utterly 
selfish and sordid. Yet such was the view of Mr. Parker, who 
in his reply arraigned Douglas more severely, if possible, than 
Herndon had done, while at the same time reporting the out- 
look from his watch-tower in the East : 

Boston, Mass., Dec. 31, 1857. 
Hon. W. H. Herndon. 

Dear Sir : — I thank you for your two valuable and in- 
structive letters. It is a strange state of things now, but 
quite encouraging. Look at some facts : 

I. The South has determined on two things to be done 
immediately: (1) To make Kansas a Slave State. (2) 
To capture and "re-annex" Nicaragua. 

II. The North on the whole is determined that Kansas 
shall not thus be made a Slave State — but a considerable 
party yet hopes it will be, they care not how. This party 
consists of two divisions: (1) Partisan Democrats who 
hold office or seek for it ; (2) Old Whigs and Know-Nothings 
who care only for money. But these two are in a minority. 
In Boston they are represented by the federal officers and 
such men as Everett, Winthrop, Choate, and the like. The 
great bulk of the people are opposed to slavery in Kansas, 
always excepting the Irish — they are by instinct friendly 
to slavery. This comes partly from their nature, partly 
also from their position at home, which has so degraded 
the poor wretches, and partly from the conduct of their 
priests who follow the logic of their institution and defend 
slavery. 

I don 't think the North is much opposed to the conquest 
of Nicaragua, and the rest of mankind. The strong passion 
of the Saxon is — lust for land. It is so with the British 
Saxon, so with the American. It was so a thousand years 
ago. The blood of the old filibusters, the Danes and Nor- 
mans, is yet in the people. But the Northern men tliink 
it may be dangerous to conquer such a territory. Tliey 
know it is wrong to invade a people who do us no harm. So 
they moderately oppose Walker and his troop. 

III. The President is an old man, a man of feeble will, 
of no ideas — vacillating in his measures, but firm in one 



138 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

principle — to take care of James Buchanan. But he was 
chosen by the South, at the command of the South ; on a 
platform of the South he was sworn into office. He will 
therefore be forced to yield to the logic of Southern ideas. 
There is a manifest destiny in that which no will could 
escape. But he wishes to keep all the party together; to 
attempt in words to conciliate the North while in deeds he 
obeys his stern masters at the South. Hence his vacilla- 
tion in regard to Walker and Kansas, to Nicaragua, to the 
great financial question. 

Now as the Northern institutions and the Southern are 
founded on ideas exactly opposite and antagonistic, and as 
the logic thereof impels the people in opposite directions, it 
is plain that one of three things must happen: (1) The 
South may conquer the North; (2) The North may conquer 
the South; (3) The two may separate without a fight. I 
need not say which is likely to happen. 

Douglas finds his term is nearly out in the Senate; he 
knows we will not be re-elected if he continues facing to the 
South. If he fails of the Senatorship in '59 he fails of the 
Presidency in 1860 or 1864. He is ambitious, unprinci- 
pled, coarse, vulgar, but strong in the qualities which make a 
' ' democratic ' ' leader. He has served the South all along, but 
the South would not pay him with the nomination in 1856. 
He seeks his revenge on its nominee, and on the South itself 
— while he shall advance his own interest. So he opposes 
the attempt to force slavery on Kansas. He claims that he 
does this in consistency with his Kansas-Nebraska Bill and 
his doctrine of squatter sovereignty. But he is more incon- 
sistent than it appears at first. For not only did he (1) 
favor Toombs's Bill, but (2) the Kansas-Nebraska Bill with 
its squatter sovereignty was not a principle of his political 
philosophy — but only a measure of his political aim to 
move the South for his own advancement. So he is now not 
only obviously inconsistent with his special support of 
Toombs's Bill, but secretly and profoundly inconsistent with 
his whole course of action and uniform adhesion to the 
South, and his perpetual mock at freedom and its supporters. 

He is a mad-dog who has grown fat by devouring our 
sheep. He was trained to that business — this bloodhound 
of the South. But as his master has not fed him as he 
hoped, he turns round and barks at those whom he once 
obeyed whenever they whistled for him and bit whomsoever 
they told him to seize. I have no more faith in him now 



THE BEVOLT OF DOUGLAS 139 

than two years ago. But he is biting our enemies. "Dog 
eat dog," says the Turk; "Dog eat wolf," say I, "bite 'em, 
take hold on 'em, stibboy ! ' ' 

Here is his plan of action. He sees the South is deter- 
mined on putting slavery in Kansas. He sees it can't be 
done, but if the Democratic party insists on the Southern 
measures it will be in 1860 where the Whigs were in 1856. 
In all the Northern States it will be routed and cut to pieces. 
He won't connect himself with the Southern effort. He 
won't run for President in 1860. He has told Walker, "I 
shan't be in your way in 1860." For he foresees the defeat 
of the Democrats at that time ; their rally about another 
platform, under another flag, and with different leaders in 
1864. He hopes for his own triumph then — his own elec- 
tion. He contemplated this in 1855-6. Don't you remem- 
ber ' ' Senator Douglas had a bad sore throat ' ' and could not 
attend the sessions of the Senate in December, '55, January, 
'56, but in February got better? I wait now to see what 
he will say to the administration's treatment of Paulding. 
Yours truly, Theo. Parker. 

Anxiously the two men watched the political "dog-fight" be- 
tween Douglas and Buchanan, hoping for a disruption in the 
Democratic party, yet distrusting Douglas while unable to 
forecast his course. The fight was fierce and bitter and even 
bystanders were not safe, for no one could tell what club 
Douglas might use. Herndon found time for only a brief 
reply : 

Springfield, 111., Jan. 8, 1858. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir : — This letter of yours is longer than usual, 
and, therefore, to me more satisfactory, though I always 
feel grateful for any, ' ' long or short. ' ' Since I wrote to you 
this Walker difficulty has happened, and it may alter the 
circumstances. Douglas is a very curious and exceedingly 
corrupt man, and no man can tell exactly where he is or 
will be. Your letter contains some facts and the balance 
tendencies and philosophy, to which I assent with all my 
heart. I am obliged to you for your two speeches on "The 
Great Battle." Please accept my thanks. What I write 
to you is always written in my office amid bluster, confusion 
and "malicious queries;" and you must therefore look over 
imperfections and mistakes. You know a country law office, 



140 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

and if you do not, just step into ours some day and see for 
yourself. Though I do not like Douglas, though I despise 
his character, though I detest the gambling politician, still 
I, too, say to him, ' ' Seize 'em, bite 'em, choke 'em ; it is dog 
eat dog ! ' ' Does it not seem that Douglas, in this Walker 
matter, is moved purely by spite to Buchanan? Is it not 
revenge ? Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

II 

All eyes were turned to the Senate, where the "Little Giant" 
was fighting for his life, by turns threatened and eulogized in 
public while his foes within his own party were stabbing him 
in the back in private. Every kind of pressure was brought 
to bear upon him to lay down arms. The party press, led by 
the Washington Union, held him up to execration as a traitor, 
a renegade, and a deserter. With matchless scorn the Rich- 
mond South spoke of him as a man of rude and vulgar origin, 
who, by association with Southern gentlemen, had become quite 
a decent and well-behaved person. The whole machinery of 
executive patronage was turned against him, and his friends 
were turned out of office. Wliat this meant in Illinois Hern- 
don described in his next letter — written, it should be remem- 
bered, at the very time when John Brown was revealing to 
Gerritt Smith and to Theodore Parker his desperate plans for 
attacking slavery by force. Here, at the very ear of Lin- 
coln, was a man, Kentucky bred, like Lincoln himself, and 
taught to look down on the negro as something below human- 
ity, yet breathing a spirit akin to that of Brown : 

Springfield, 111., Feb. 20, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — Wlien I wrote to you last I was then just 
going into our Supreme Court, and had no time to answer 
your letter more at length. Doubtless you remember that 
I said I agreed to what was in your letter. I did so and 
do yet, still I see nothing in it to make me alter my opinions 
concerning Douglas, or his flexible moves. Everything that 
has happened in Congress and out, since I wrote to you, 
confirms what I said. I stood upon the law that governs 
man, and judged all from that standpoint. The filibuster- 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 141 

ing moves are gone for the present; the Paulding affair is 
settled, too, for the present. The blood of "the old filibus- 
ters," however, is in our people yet, and sooner or later it 
will break out on the face of the nation, sickening the whole 
frame and sacrificing the ruddy cheeks of the Anglo-Saxon. 
Though all this is very true, see where Douglas is: he is 
whipped; he is evidently cowed; and looks up from his 
degraded condition with a kind of hell-gathered malignity. 
Thank God for so much ! 

President Buchanan is removing the officers in this State : 
the guillotine works well and fast and sharp. I say, ' ' Cut 
off their heads — gut them — throw them to the dogs ; give 
them to the crows ! ' ' Buck will create a party here, and the 
fight will be bitter-hot between Buck's men and Douglas's 
worshipers. I have a poor brother now in Washington 
hunting. While he is going fast one way I am going as fast 
the other, and so the world moves. If the administration 
forces the Lecompton constitution on those free people, / 
am for war. I am this day ready to cut out the cause of all 
our troubles. The more I think of this question and the 
more I know of Phillips's and your position the more I am 
convinced that this people will have to meet this issue on 
the only field you point out. It must come at last; there 
is no escape from it. It is the law of human progress ; your 
paths are the paths on which this progress is to be made. I 
am for burning out the cause of the evil — I am for cutting 
out the nigger, and as I now see it, it is self defense for the 
white man. Harris, from this district, whom I frequently 
met on the stump in 1856, takes the same view. He laughed 
at me at his home, in Petersburg, over my ideas. Now he 
has caught them. He sees that the cause must be eradicated 
before the white men are safe. If the Lecompton consti- 
tution is forced down our people, the door everj^ivhere will 
be thrown wide open for Garrison, Phillips, yourself, and 
others. This will be a Godsend. 

I now see that there is no freedom — true, genuine Lib- 
erty — anywhere in this broad Union. There is no State 
Sovereignty in the Confederacy, and the only way to right 
ourselves is through bloody Revolution. The quicker we 
get to this point the better for all. This is no flash-in-the- 
pan idea, but one long struggled against, and loathed, hated 
and detested. If you know me well you know that this is 
really my opinion and for which I am ready to sacrifice life, 
everything but honor. I once scorned men who thought so. 
Man will develop, and civilization will spread; it is his 



142 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

destiny written by the finger of God on the spirit- surface 
of man; and in proportion to our individual development, 
and the spread of civilization, its result, man must rise, and 
thus must see and hate the very wrongs which before he 
worshiped. This is the law: God says to man, "This way 
my good children — there is no other : ' ' and that way we 
will go though through glittering steel and crackling fire. 
But man 's destiny shall not perish — no, never. 

Your letter is well and inimitably put; there is no eva- 
sion of the antecedents or the sequents. INIen and parties 
are as you describe them. The poor miserable Irish are the 
instruments of our cowardly tyrants. Poor fools. Such 
men as Everett, Choate, Winthrop are more dangerous to 
progress — to true Liberty — than the open brawling Irish- 
man. They listlessly sit down when they have the power to 
do good, and say nothing for the encouragement of mankind. 
This is practical atheism. They may pretend to worship 
God, but such a God! Oh, good God! Once I loved all 
these men, but now I have no words to express my disregard 
for them. 

It may be true that so soon as the Kansas-Lecompton 
issue is passed, and Kansas is in the Union as a Slave State, 
that the Southern men will cast their filibustering eyes 
southward. It is quite likely that this will be so. I " guess ' ' 
Central America is doomed : then comes Cuba : then more 
Slave States : and then, — what ? Good God ! Are these 
people ever to be waked, fired, educated to the fighting 
point ? That man or set of men who disregards any human 
being's rights, black or white, will take away all other men's 
rights when the exigencies seem to demand it. This is the 
law, and this people had better learn that law quickly and 
well. It does strike me that our people ought to see that 
the issue is this : ' ' Shall we have no slavery or shall it be 
universal, including white as well as black?" 

You have well said that the two, slavery and freedom, are 
at the opposite ends of the human poles : that they are un- 
dying and eternal antagonists; that they lead ideas, and 
consequently human actions, up to heaven or down to hell ; 
and that this antagonism is deeply radicated, eternally plant- 
ed in the natures of the two ; if this is so — which no thinking 
man can deny — then this follows : eternal, bloody, unquail- 
ing war. Death to the one or the other is inevitable. I 
know which it will be, but I do not like bloody revolutions. 
I love peace. My whole nature whispers peace, but at the 
same time it says, "Peace with justice." 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 143 

You need not tell me your opinion of the final result of 
things in America. I know without your telling me. I 
gather it by instinct — by brute-sagacity. I remember one 
of your sermons very well in which you say you cannot afford 
to tell Bostonians the result of things : that they could not 
bear it. 

You ask me if I do not remember that Senator Douglas 
did not go into the Senate in 1855-6. I do ; but at the time 
had no idea of the cause. Since you have mentioned it and 
coupled it with other things it is as you state the case — 
have no doubt of it. The "Senator" was balked; he was 
disappointed: he is now most emphatically balked — so is 
the whole Western Democracy. The Douglas men here, and 
in the north part of the State where I have been, look 
gloomy, curse strongly — ' ' drink heap whiskey. ' ' It does 
my soul good to see the devils ' ' chaw ' ' the bitter cud. How- 
ever, they will be Abolitionists. Let me ask you a terrible 
question: "Is not Wendell Phillips's idea about niggers 
and the Union the only way to cut the knot ? Will not this 
people be compelled to CAit through the Constitution to reach 
the nigger, and break his chains so as to keep the white 
man free?" 

My partner, Mr. Lincoln, has just got back from Chicago. 
He says he saw N. B. Judd, who is quite an astute, subtle 
politician; he is right from Washington; he says Douglas 
is dead — feels bad, is gloomy, miserable, knows he is lost. 
Mr. Judd says that Buchanan is soon, by and through his 
friends here, to organize a party in Illinois. This is so I 
think, and if it turns out true the end of Douglas is come ; 
his political grave is dug. I saw a man from "Egypt" — 
a Douglas Democrat — the other day, and he says that the 
mass down there refuse to follow Douglas. Excuse length. 
Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

As Herndon had predicted, the Douglas and Buchanan feud 
had now reached the personal recrimination stage, and all 
manner of exposures were promised. Ugly rumors were afloat, 
one to the effect that Douglas himself was not entirely innocent 
of complicity in the Lecompton fraud, which he so valiantly 
opposed; while Douglas, in turn, was charging Calhoun with 
forgery. At any rate, it was evident that revelations of a 
startling kind would be made if all threats were carried out. 
Herndon wrote to Mr. Parker correcting two errors in his 



144 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

former letter, and rejoicing in the prospect of disclosures at 
the capital: 

Springfield, 111., Feb. 24, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I want to correct an error into which I was 
led by the telegrams. News did land here that Buchanan 
was "chopping" off the heads of his enemies, quick and 
fast. But he has done so to one only, and that was the 
Chicago postmaster. Again : I stated to j^ou that Mr. Harris 
had taken a pretty bold stand for freedom; that he stood 
where I did in 1856. This news did come here, but it is not 
so ; he is only partially with us. His letter to the New York 
Democratic Anti-Lecompton party is as far as he goes. I 
know the man ; he will eventually be with the North ; he is 
shrewd, not bold; small, technical, not general or great; 
selfish, not generous. Just as I was writing my letter to you 
my office got full of people inquiring about three cent law- 
suits; they made me make one or two mistakes. 

I received a letter, a reliable one, from Washington, that 
Douglas and Calhoun are belching out "secrets" against 
each other. The letter says that Calhoun will prove by doc- 
uments, if he is forced to do so, that Mr. Douglas had a finger 
in making the Lecompton constitution. The same letter 
says that Douglas, if forced, will prove that Calhoun com- 
mitted forgery in the returns, etc. I hope each will be 
forced to open. I say, ' ' Apply the screws. ' ' 

]\Ir. Douglas — just think — has sent me some documents 
this morning. That is something I never expected, nor 
desired. The world does move, I verily believe. You need 
only write when you feel like doing so. I know your busi- 
ness now better than of old, and excuse you. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Nor was there any real basis in fact for the charge that Doug- 
las was involved in the plot to defraud Kansas of its right to a 
fair vote. During their joint debates Lincoln, prompted it 
seems by Trumbull, reviewed the shadowy history of the 
Toombs Bill, and sought to connect his opponent with its nefar- 
ious scheme; but an impartial survey of the incident acquits 
Douglas, though he damaged himself at tlie time by his method 
of defense.^ Despite these threats of ugly exposure, "the Lit- 
1 Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, pp. 303-4, 379-80 (1908). 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 145 

tie Giant, ' ' by his fight with Buchanan ^ was rapidly regaining 
what he had lost in Illinois by his part in the repeal of the 
IMissouri Compromise. Many, even among the Republicans, 
who had been deeply estranged from him since 1854, were not 
unwilling to revise their judgment of a man who fought in 
behalf of justice to Kansas with so much courage and pluck. 
Perhaps the Senator was as much surprised as any one else at 
this quick turn of affairs, but he saw his chance and knew how 
to use it. 

Ill 

From what source none knew, rumors were adrift to the effect 
that Douglas, having defied the Slave party, might follow the 
logic of his position. On one issue at least he was already 
standing with the Republicans, and there were those who hailed 
his coming over to the party with great joy, notwithstanding 
the distrust of him by the party leaders in Congress. Though 
a sinner somewhat late in returning, they conceived that he 
might still further repent of his sin against the peace and good 
faith of the nation. Outside of Illinois, the party seemed 
almost willing to let by-gones be by-gones and to accept Doug- 
las into the ranks as a leader ; some going so far as to intimate, 
as a practical expedient, that the party demand might be 
softened a trifle, if need be, in order to admit so able, cour- 
ageous, and influential a convert. Stranger things had hap- 
pened, and the suggestion gathered momentum and plausibility 
as it spread. 

At last Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune — 
perhaps the most widely read paper in the nation — espoused 
the cause, and called upon Republicans to rally about "the 

1 For a contemporary critique of ' ' Mr. Buchanan 's Administration, ' ' 
see an article of that title by James Russell Lowell in The Atlantic Month- 
ly, April, 1858, which reviewed the course of the President, stage by stage, 
including his attitude toward Kansas, his relation to William Walker, 
Paulding, and the rest; perhaps the most scathing arraignment of a Pres- 
idential administration ever written. A more temperate survey is that of 
James G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. I, Chap. X, especially 
pp. 239-241 (1884). 



146 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Little Giant" in liis fight against the common foe. Taking 
its cue, the party press, especially in the East, began to speak 
favorably of Douglas and his revolt, in the hope of gaining a 
distinguished recruit. Even Seward seemed to incline to the 
same attitude for a time, though he very prudently said noth- 
ing publicly ; but his supposed organ, the New York Times, was 
outspoken in favor of it. But when Greeley — honest, well- 
meaning, but ill-advised — actually urged the Republicans of 
Illinois to put up no candidate in the coming race for the 
Senate, there were protests. Lincoln and his friends had fore- 
seen it all from the first, except the blunder of Greeley, and 
their minds were made up. Ten days after the revolt of 
Douglas, Gustave Koerner had written an article for the 
Anzeiger des Westens of St. Louis, reviewing the situation and 
summing it up in much the same language that Herndon had 
used in his letter to Mr. Parker on December 19th. Aptly and 
incisively he stated the crux of the case : 

It is a very ingenious scheme ; but we Illinoisans know Judge 
V Douglas too well to be taken in by it. If he will help us to 
defeat the regular Democracy, very well ; we will not repel 
him ; but to make him the champion of our principles because 
he happens in some points to agree with us, while on others 
concerning the slavery question he is against us and still 
denounces us as Black Republicans, would be the height of 
self-degradation and imbecility. It would grant him abso- 
lution of the terrible sin he has committed against the peace, 
dignity and morality of the people. Put him in the Senate 
again, and in less than a year he will have made his peace 
with the pro-Slavery party, and we shall have been duped. 
Do not listen to the persuasive advice of outside Republi- 
cans who do not know Judge Douglas, but stand to your 
colors of 1856 and spurn any unholy and compromising 
alliances.^ 

These men, only a small coterie at first, refused to accept the 
leadership of Douglas without some inquiry as to his motives. 
Having for years faced him as the ablest, most alert, most 
bitter of their foes, they demanded some evidence of repent- 
ance more genuine than a desire to return to the Senate without 
1^ Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, Vol. II, pp. 55, 56 (1909). 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 147 

a fight. They could not agree with philosopher Greeley that 
not only magnanimity, but policy, dictated that they should 
tender their support to a man who had said that he did not care 
whether slavery was voted up or down. Nor did they believe 
that Douglas had any intention of coming over to the Repub- 
lican party. "I see his tracks all over our State," wrote 
Medill, of the Chicago Tribune, "and they point only in one 
direction; not a single toe is turned toward the Republican 
camp. Watch him, use him, but do not trust him — not an 
inch. " ^ As Greeley afterwards observed, ' ' They did not 
concur, but received the suggestion with passionate impa- 
tience. ' ' ^ 

But at "Washington it was different. By mid-winter poli- 
tics had made odd things familiar, while ''the Little Giant" 
was still fighting the Lecompton fraud — a fraud so palpable, 
indeed, that Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, who sup- 
ported it at every step, afterward declared publicly that it 
should at once have been kicked out of Congress. On more 
than one occasion Greeley was a \dsitor at the Douglas residence 
in Minnesota Block, and gossip had it that he favored Douglas 
for the Presidency.^ One after another men like Henry Wil- \ 
son, Schuyler Colfax, and other Republican leaders, lost their 
distrust in an air of engaging good-fellowship ; * and some of 
them were ready to indorse "popular sovereignty," now that 
it seemed likely to exclude slavery from the Territories." Doug- 
las intimated to these men that he could not act with his party 
in the future,*^ assuring them, repeatedly, that he was in the 
fight to stay — in his own words, that "he had taken a through 



1 Life of Schuyler Colfax, by O. J. Hollister, p. 120 (1886). 

2 Iiecollections of a Busy Life, by Horace Greeley, p. 357 (1869). 
"And besides," he added, "their hearts were set on the election, as his 
successor, of their own special favorite and champion, Abraham Lincoln, 
who . . . was endeared to them by his honest worth as a man. ' ' 

s First Blows of the Civil War, by J. S. Pike, p. 403 (1879). 

4 Life of Colfax, by O. J. Hollister, pp. 119 ff.; The Rise and Fall of 
the Slave Power, by Henry Wilson, Vol. II, p. 567 (1872). 

5 Life of Seward, by Frederick Bancroft, Vol. 1, pp. 449-50 (1900). 
e Life of Schuyler Colfax, by O. J. Hollister, p. 121 (1886). 



148 LINCOLN AND HE RNDON 

ticket, and checked his baggage. " ^ In a letter to Theodore 
Parker, February 28, 1858, Wilson wrote, quite positive that 
Douglas was a man to be trusted : 

1 say to you in confidence that you are mistaken in regard 
to Douglas. He is as sure to be with us in the future as 
Chase, Seward or Sumner. I leave motives to God ; but he 
is to be with us ; and he is today of more weight to our cause 
than any ten men in the country. I know men and I know 
their power, and I know that Douglas will go for crushing 
the Slave Power to atoms. To use his own words, to several 
of our friends, tJiis day, in a three-hours consultation : ' ' We 
must grind this administration to powder ; we must punish 
every man who supports this crime ; and we must prostrate 
forever the Slave Power, which uses Presidents and dis- 
honors and disgraces them. ' ' He will sink the Democratic 
party. Don 't fear him. Have faith in men ; the future 
is bright with hope.^ 

Truly it was the voice of Esau, but Mr. Parker knew that the 
hands were the hands of a very slippery and cunning political 
Jacob. ^ No one now believes that Douglas ever had any inten- 
tion of going over to the Republican party; but in the new 
twist of events he did see, as Lincoln said, a chance of attaching 
the Republicans, or a part of them, to the tail of his Presi- 
dential kite. Having breached the Democracy, if he could 
divide the Republican party he might be able to harness one 
of its steeds with his Democratic donkey and ride first into the 
Senate, and then into the White House. There is no doubt 
that this was his supreme aim in 1858, and one must keep it in 

^Recollections of a Busy Life, by Horace Greeley, p. 356 (1869). 

2 Manuscript letter, by the kindness of Mr. F. B. Sanborn. 

3 While in Illinois, during the campaign of 1856, Mr. Parker had heard 
Douglas speak at Galesburg, October 21st. Writing to Hon. J. P. Hale, 
he said: "I heard Douglas this afternoon. He was considerably drunk 
and made one of the most sophistical and deceitful speeches I ever heard. 
It was mere brutality in respect to morals, and sophistry for logic, in the 
style and manner of a low blackguard. . . But there is a good deal of rough 
power in his evil face. I never saw him before." — Life of Parlcer, by 
John Weiss, Vol. II, p. 187 (1864). Mr. Weiss suppressed a part of the 
letter in liis facsimile reproduction of it. — Theodore Parker, by J. W. 
Chadwick, p. 331 (1900). Not for this one scene, but after watching the 
course of Douglas, Parker had lost faith in him. 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 149 

mind in order to understand that memorable campaign. It 
was a daring scheme, but not at all impossible, and it would 
have succeeded had not Lincoln placed his party upon a l)asis 
so radical that Douglas dared not follow. So that when the 
Senator returned in triumph to Chicago, feeling that his fight 
for Kansas had won the day, he found, to his amazement, that 
his rival had dictated an issue which placed him upon the de- 
fensive.^ 

One has only to read the letters of Lincoln to learn that he 
had the ambitions of a man ; but it is the actual truth to say 
that in this crisis, though his own political future was involved, 
personal motives were secondary. Indeed, he had on more 
than one occasion shown his willingness to stand aside for 
other men who were true to the right star — for Trumbull in 
1854, to go no farther back. But he could not sit still and see 
the party which had fought the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise, had survived the defeat of 1856, and had risen to new 
life under the staggering blow of the Dred Scott decision, fall 
into the clutches of a man whom he regarded as a trimmer, a 
trickster, and a political gambler. He knew that, on the slav- 
ery question, Douglas had no deep feeling ; - that he regarded 
it as a local instead of a national problem, and really did not 

1 Stephen A. Douglas, by Clark E. Can-, pp. 78-') (1909). 

2 That Douglas had no deep feeling with regard to the moral obliquity 
of slavery hardly needs proof. While, for various reasons, he did not own 
slaves, as was charged against him, his wife did. (See a letter from 
Kobert M. Douglas, his eldest son, quoted in Stephen A. Douglas, by Clark 
E. Carr, pp. 58-9). When pressed directly upon the subject of the evil 
of slavery, he invariably dodged. He did not regard the negro as a citizen, 
declaring over and over again : ' ' This is a white man 's government made 
by white men, for white men and their descendants. ' ' He held that the 
dictum of the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created 
equal, ' ' had no reference whatsoever to the negro ; and, historically, no 
doubt he was right. In every argument he made he classed negro slaves 
as he did other property, and once at least he went so far as to say that if 
he lived in Louisiana he would own slaves and defend his right. — Stephen 
A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, ]>. 415. Again and again during their 
joint debates, Lincoln tried to draw from him some expression as to the 
essential evil of slavery, but to no purpose. The root of the matter was 
not in him. 



^ 



150 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

care whether it was voted up or down. Small wonder, then, 
that he was depressed and gloomy when he saw men like Gree- 
ley bent on trading the birthright of the party for a mess 
of pottage. 

Herndon, as we have noted, had foreseen the possibility of 
Douglas coming over to the Republicans, and had contemplated 
with disgust the idea of having to vote for him ; but when it 
became a probability, linked with the suggestion that the party 
ideal be lowered, his indignation was only surpassed by his 
excitement. At once he began writing to Seward, Sumner, 
Phillips, Greeley, Trumbull, and others, protesting against 
such a vile apostasy, and urging them not to fall into the trap 
set by Douglas. The replies, except those of Senator Trumbull, 
were so unsatisfactory that he determined to go to Washington 
and New England, and see the situation for himself. Lincoln 
doubted the propriety of such a journey, which, by virtue of 
their close relations, might be misconstrued ; but Herndon over- 
ruled all objections, packed his grip, and started for "Wash- 
ington, dropping a note the while to Mr. Parker. 

Springfield, 111., March 4, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I received from you this morning your 
speech, in the Anti-Slavery Standard, made on January 29th. 
I thank you for it. I have read it with pleasure, and am 
instructed by it. You hit Douglas hard, yet do him justice. 
One mistake you labor under, and it is this: you say that 
the people of Illinois would vote for him this day. You 
are mistaken. The cowardly rulers and leaders of the iron- 
chain Democracy are going over to Buchanan "thick and 
fast." They are looking for plunder; they are for sale; 
they scorn Douglas. 

I am on my way to Washington — probably start this 
evening or tomorrow morning — and from which place I 
will write to you, giving my opinion of things. I want to 
see Douglas's face: / tvant to look Jiim. in the eye. I think 
I know what he is as well as any man, having seen him 
enough in all conditions and states. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Though Parker, who was unused to the ways of drinking men, 
had no idea what Herndon meant by "looking Douglas in the 



THE BEVOLT OF DOUGLAS 151 

eye," he awaited reports. In Washington Mr. Herndon dined 
with Senator Trumbull, and went over the situation with him 
in detail. Trumbull was somewhat puzzled but not alarmed 
by the course of Douglas, concerning which he deemed it 
useless to speculate, since in his belief Douglas himself did 
not know where he was going or where he would come out. 
He was quite positive, however, that Douglas had no idea of 
casting his lot with the Republican party. Feeling that Trum- 
bull was not on the inside of the scheme, Mr. Herndon inter- 
viewed Seward and Wilson, both of whom had already wel- 
comed Douglas as a powerful ally, on the ground that through 
him the gospel was being preached, though with adulteration, 
to the Gentiles.^ Douglas himself was ill in bed : 

But on receiving my card he directed me to be shown up to 
his room. We had a pleasant and interesting interview. 
Of course the conversation soon turned on Lincoln. In answer 
to an inquiry regarding the latter I remarked that Lincoln 
was pursuing the even tenor of his way. "He is not in 
anybody's way," I contended, "not even in yours, Judge 
Douglas." He was sitting up in a chair smoking a cigar. 
Between puffs he responded that neither was he in the way 
of Lincoln or any one else, and did not intend to invite 
conflict. He conceived that he had achieved what he had 
set out to do, and hence did not feel that his course need 
put him in opposition to Mr. Lincoln or his party. "Give 
Mr. Lincoln my regards," he said, rather warmly, "when 
you return, and tell him I have crossed the river and burned 
my boat. ' ' ^ 

There was more to the interview, as we shall see later, which 
included more than one ' ' look into the eye of Douglas, ' ' and 
Mr. Herndon left firmly convinced that the wolf was after the 
sheep. Having spent several days in the capital and its en- 
\irons, he went to New York to have it out with Greeley face 
to face, and to advise him of the state of sentiment in Illinois. 
He found that Greeley, while not hostile to Lincoln, was more 
than ever fixed in his opinion that it was wiser to return Doug- 



iLi/e of Seward, by T. K. Lothrop, p. 178 (1899). 

2 Ahraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. II, pp. 62, 63. 



152 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

las to the Senate ; nor could he be moved.^ All the same, Hern- 
don presented the case of his partner in the best phase he knew 
how, and went to see Beecher, who received him cordially and 
sent a message of good cheer by him to Lincoln. From New 
York he went to Boston, where he found the sentiment in favor 
of Douglas even more pronounced. About the time of his 
arrival Douglas made a speech in the Senate, rising from his 
bed, it was said, by sheer force of will to enter a final plea for 
sanity before his party took its suicidal plunge. In closing 
he said: 

I intend to perform my duty in accordance with my own 
convictions. Neither the frowns of power nor the influence 
of patronage will change my action, or drive me from my 
principles. I stand firmly, immovably upon those great 
principles of self-government and state sovereignty upon 
which the campaign was fought and the election won. . . . 
If, standing firmly by my principles, I shall be. driven into 
private life, it is a fate that has no terrors for me. I prefer 
private life, preserving my own self-respect and manhood, to 
abject and servile submission to executive will. ... I am 
prepared to retire. Official position has no charms for me 
when deprived of that freedom of thought and action which 
becomes a gentleman and a Senator. 

With such words ringing in their ears New England men 
could not understand why Mr. Herndon was not a supporter 
of Douglas. Those who spoke to him of the situation in Illi- 
nois took it for granted that the Republicans were going to 
rally about "the Little Giant," and send him back to the 
Senate as a reward for his fight for Kansas. When he men- 
tioned Lincoln, he was several times asked if his partner had 
not once engaged in a duel ^ — a reference to the absurd inci- 
dent with Shields sixteen years before. Herndon was indeed 
astonished that so trivial an incident had lived so long and 
traveled so far, as if Lincoln had never done anything else. 
Writing to Lincoln, he reported the trend of things: ^ 

1 Eecollectioiis of a Busy Life, by Horace Greeley, p. 358 (1869). 

2 Lincoln, Master of Men, by A. Eothschild, p. 74 (1906). 

& Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. II, pp. 63, 64. 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 153 

Revere House, Boston, Mass., March 4, 1858. 
Friend Lincoln : 

I am in this city of notions, and am well — very well in- 
deed. I wrote you a hasty letter from Washington some 
days ago, since which time I have been in Philadelphia, Bal- 
timore, New York, and now here. I saw Greeley, and so 
far as any of our conversation is interesting to you will 
relate. And we talked, say twenty minutes. He evidently 
wants Douglas sustained and sent back to the Senate. He 
did not say so much in so many words, yet his feelings are 
with Douglas. I knoiv it from the spirit and drift of his 
conversation. He talked bitterly — somewhat so — against 
the papers in Illinois, and said they were fools. I asked 
him this question, "Greeley, do you want to see a third 
party organized, or do you want Douglas to ride to power 
through the North, which he has so much abused and be- 
trayed?" and to which he replied, "Let the future alone; 
it will all come right. Douglas is a brave man. Forget 
the past and sustain the righteous.'' Good God, righteous, 
eh! 

Since I have landed in Boston I have seen much that was 
entertaining and interesting. This morning I was intro- 
duced to Governor Banks. He and I had a conversation 
about Republicanism and especially about Douglas. He 
asked me this question, "You will sustain Douglas in Illi- 
nois, won't you?" and to which I said, ''No, never V He 
affected to be much surprised, and so the matter dropped 
and turned on Republicanism, or in general — Lincoln. 
Greeley's and other sheets that laud Douglas, Harris, et ah, 
want them sustained, and will try to do it. Several persons 
have asked me the same question which Banks asked, and 
evidently they get their cue, ideas, or what not from Greeley, 
Seward, and others. By-the-by, Greeley remarked to me 
this, "The Republican standard is too high; we want some- 
thing practical." 

This may not be interesting to you, but, however it may 
be, it is my duty to state what is going on, so that you may 
head it off — counteract it in some way. I hope it can be 
done. The Northern men are cold to me — somewhat repel- 
lent. Y^'our friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Mr. Herndon thoroughly enjoyed his stay in New England, 
despite its unfavorable political weather. Nature was at hand 
to soothe whatever disappointment he felt at the wrong-head- 



154 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

edness of party leaders, while the city of Boston, with its 
historic shrines and associations, appealed strongly to his imag- 
ination. If some of the men whom he had seen afar dwarfed 
upon nearer approach, others towered to take their places — 
Nnotably William Lloyd Garrison, whom he had pictured as a 
cold, narrow, bigoted, ungracious man, but whom he after- 
wards regarded as one of the noblest men the nation had 
known. Nor was he mistaken ; for, of all the fathers and fight- 
ers of the anti-slavery crusade, for such it was, Garrison was 
surely one of the most enlightened, one of the most disinter- 
ested, one of the most consistent and constant ; and, in private 
life and personal character, one of the most admirable. Gar- 
rison afterwards visited Mr. Herndon in Springfield, and 
their friendship endured, through good and evil days, to the 
end. Though somewhat chilled by Sumner, the "green Suck- 
er, " as he called himself, was warmly received by Phillips and 
Parker, whose hospitality he enjoyed, and to whom he could 
talk with equal freedom of politics and religion. To Hern- 
don, as to many another in those days, a Sunday in Music 
Hall was an experience long anticipated and never to be for- 
gotten. There he saw Theodore Parker on his throne, his vast 
audience before him, his ample discourse a kind of brilliant 
scene painting — large, rapid, and vivid, with masses of light 
and shade, ranging wide and free in its portrayal of the life 
of God in the soul of man. Herndon was essentially religious, 
and the prayer touched him more deeply than the sermon, all 
the more so for that Parker seemed to be out of doors when he 
prayed; and there was wind, and sun, and gentle rain in his 
petition, so simple and joyous, and withal so unforgetful of the 
weary and the heavy-ladened. The audience not less than 
the service impressed him, and no wonder, for what a galaxy 
of men gathered about the man of Music Hall ! 

Returning home, Herndon had many interesting things to 
tell his partner, in whose behalf he had made the journey, and 
whose interests he sought to advance ; and it was characteristic 
of him to report, faithfully and fully, all the kind words he had 
heard about Lincoln from Phillips, Garrison, Beecher, Parker, 



THE REVOLT OF D OUGLAS 155 

and even Greeley. Among a number of books which he brought 
back with him was a Life of Edmund Burke — probably by Sir 
James Prior, in the Bohn Library, 1854 — which he tried to 
induce Lincoln to read, but without success. Lincoln dipped 
into it, but soon tired of the eulogy which he said could not be 
a true story of any man, since it robbed him of all human 
faults. He did, however, read some of the lectures and ser- 
mons of Parker — Herndon having brought a new supply — 
in one of which he marked the expression: ''Democracy is 
direct self-government, over all the people, for all the people, 
by all the people.'' No doubt this was the origin of that 
famous phrase which Lincoln, with his sure instinct for the 
right word, set like a jewel in the imperishable gold of the 
Gettysburg address.^ 

IV 

Two days after his return, Herndon wrote to Mr. Parker giving 
his impressions of New England and her people, complaining 
somewhat bitterly of the coldness of Boston men. No one had 
called on him during the ten days he was in the city, which 
contrasted strangely with his Southern code of hospitality. 
Still, it was not of this neglect that he complained, but of the 
general uncommunicativeness of New England folk, many of 

1 Indeed, there is no doubt that this was the origin, so far as Lincoln 
was concerned, of that memorable phrase, though some have traced it to 
Thomas Cooper, and others to the preface of the old Wycliffe Bible. The 
chance that Lincoln ever saw Cooper's Information Eespecting America, 
or the Wycliffe Bible, is infinitesimally small. Parker may have seen both, 
for his library of 12,000 volumes contained almost a hundred editions of 
the Bible, some of them very rare. At any rate, the phrase, in one form 
or another, had been a favorite with Parker for years, often taking the 
exact form in which Lincoln used it. In a speech delivered in 1859 we find 
it embedded in a passage of great power, while his first use of it was in a 
letter to Samuel J. May, in 1846, where it is simply ' ' government of all, by 
all, for all." But the testimony of Herndon is sufficient as it relates to 
Lincoln, even if in his biography he is mistaken in the title of the address 
which he gave to his partner. — Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II, p. 65. The ad- 
dress he mentions, "The Effect of Slavery," was delivered on the 4th of 
July follovidng. See also article by N. B. Judd, Century Magazine, Sep- 
tember, 1887. 



156 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

whom seemed to regard his inquisitive Western ways as intru- 
sive. Nevertheless, he was loyal to Boston : 

Springfield, 111., April 7, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir: — I landed at home on the 5th, having im- 
proved in body and mind by my trip East. In my travels 
I was sadly disappointed in individual men, but glor- 
iously disappointed in the grandeur of Nature. Upon 
approach to individual men they seemed to shrink, whilst 
Na4;ure grew upon closer acquaintance. I always loved 
jsjji^ure — loved it long and well — and now that childish 
love has grown and expanded into the reverences of man- 
hood. My ideas of Nature and God have deepened and 
broadened, have become rich and warm in me, and I feel 
a fresh, vigorous confidence in the purity of Nature, and 
the eternal love of God for all his creatures, multiform and 
multitudinous. I breathe freely and rest easily — a kind of 
new man. 

Though simple individuals have dwarfed upon acquaint- 
ance, still I am rejoiced to know that some few are really 
great and good. Some of these men are not now known, 
but they will be ; and I think I understand them better than 
I have the credit for, even from them. It was my desire 
and wish whilst in Boston to form a nearer acquaintance 
with some few men ; but I was somewhat coldly repelled. I 
do not complain. I shall never utter publicly a lament. 
"Was it not poor Goldsmith who said that ' ' aspiring poverty 
is wretchedness itself. ' ' Was it not he ? I say that to know 
the great, or rather to aspire to, is a weakness and a misery. 
Any man is an ass who will attempt it, and I put myself 
down in that category first of all — a proud reigning ass. 
So much for so much. 

My opinion of IMassachusetts and her people is rather 
intensified and greatened. It was always tolerably good, 
and that opinion is not lessened. To her and her ruling 
spirits I remain firm. Boston is a great city ; it is a world 
of granite, a city of places and squares. I saw in Boston 
some of the noblest and handsomest women I ever saw : they 
will save the race, if the men fail. If there is anything that 
a poor ignorant "Sucker" like myself can arrogate to him- 
self it is this, namely, an intuitive seeing of human character. 
I watched you all closely, and am not deceived. I say that 
your men are generally cold — probably not more selfish 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 157 

than other men; but tliey are cold. Understand me. I do 
not say this indiscriminately of all. But your women are 
spontaneously good, generous, and loving. And now I say, 
God save you all ! 

By the by, I was greatly disappointed in one man, espe- 
cially. I had imagined him a shriveled, cold, selfish, haughty 
man, one who was weak and fanatically blind to the chari- 
ties and equities of life, at once whining and insulting, mean 
and miserable ; but I was pleasantly disappointed. I found 
him warm, generous, approachable, communicative : he has 
some mirth, some wit, and a deep abiding faith in coming 
universal charity. I was better and more warmly received 
by him than by any man in Boston ; and now whom do you 
think it was? It was this nation's greatest outlaw: it was 
William Lloyd Garrison. To my Western friends I can 
give a good account of Garrison. 

As to the combined efforts of mind, which find expression 
in combinations of power and modifications of forces, toiling 
in mills and machinery generally, the world must acknowl- 
edge Massachusetts master. I had no time to study her 
thousand branches of the sciences and the arts ; and conse- 
quently I studied what I saw whilst I ran. I almost re- 
flected while I slept : it was all new to me, and exceedingly 
interesting to one who is so "green." I say this with the 
same candor that I have talked about men and things in this 
letter. I know my faults, positive and negative. I was 
not reared in cities or in costly halls, and am not up to the 
civilities, or rather the forms of civilities. I blunder here 
and err there, and all I can say is, ' ' Forgive my trippings. ' ' 
How can a poor Western devil help being surprised and 
overwhelmed amid a confusion of men and things. 

Now as to you personally : I heard your sermon on Sun- 
day two weeks since, and was at once highly pleased and 
gratified. The sermon was deep, rich, broad, and generous, 
giving all their due. It was bottomed upon a grand social, 
political, and religious philosophy — the best experiences and 
reflections in the Kantian sense. I do not say this because 
it is you ; I say it because it is true, and I think I understand 
the elements of the Beautiful, the Good, and the True; at 
least I feel them, if I cannot logically comprehend them. 
I was gratified at the immensity of your audience ; was sur- 
prised at the number of men and women who came to hear 
you — to learn and grow wiser and better through you. 
Technical theology is odious and it can never comprehend, 



158 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

much less invade the threshold of Music Hall. There let 
Humanity, Duty, Charity, God reign forever supreme ! 

My whole trip was one of delight, amusement, pleasure 
and profit, bating a little for disappointments and rebuflPs. 
In Illinois our vegetation is much in advance of Massachu- 
setts. Our gooseberry bushes are out in full leaf ; our lilac 
is out, and blooming ; our tulips are up, and the flower stem 
is two or three inches high ; our people are planting their 
crops; Nature everywhere looks kindly, fresh, and green, 
inviting its lovers to "promenade all," and dance a universal 
waltz. Give my best respects to Mrs. Parker, and to Gar- 
rison. Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

If Lincoln could not read the Life of Edmund Burke, he did 
read, attentively, another book which Mr. Herndon secured 
while in Washington — a book notable in its day, alike for 
its defects and its facts, The Impending Crisis of the South and 
How to Meet It, by Hinton Rowan Helper, of North Carolina. 
This book, a passionate appeal to the non-slave-holding people 
of the South to rise up and rid themselves of the curse, had 
been indorsed by John Sherman, and other Republican leaders, 
and had precipitated a bitter contest for Speaker of the House 
a few weeks before. The book appeared in the latter part of 
1857 and it stirred deeply the popular mind, especially in the 
North where its facts and its spirit were equally astonishing, 
while Southern men denounced it as "insurrectionary and hos- 
tile to the tranquility of the country." Its chief contention, 
that the great inferiority of the South in wealth, education, 
population, and production was due to slavery, was supported 
by statistics. It showed, on the basis of the census of 1850, 
that in a population of 6,184,477 in the Slave States, only 347,- 
525 were slave-holders, and yet that small minority dominated 
the South, dictated its politics, and in their own interest were 
ready to dissolve the Union. Therefore its appeal, almost 
hysterical at times, to the vast, apathetic, cowardly majority 
to bestir themselves and throw off the curse, by force if need 
be.^ Unfortunately the author was not content with proving 

1 Originally there was as strong an anti-slavery sentiment in Virginia 
and Maryland as in New York and Ehode Island, nearly all great Southern 
men, from Jefferson to R. E. Lee, being opposed to slavery. The mistaken 



THE EEVOLT OF DOUGLAS 159 

his thesis, or with. showing that the non-slave-holders, who were 
a great majority, were the victims of gross and deliberate injus- 
tice. His hot pen ran away with him into language so passion- 
ate and revengeful as to in\ate ignorant men to begin a class 
war at once. 

Yet there was a logic in his facts which none could deny, 
albeit vitiated in many thoughtful minds by his frenzy for a 
sudden and revolutionary change. Still, men like Greeley, 
Sherman, William Cullen Bryant, and Weed overlooked these 
excesses in view of the array of facts, in the hope that the book 
would help such efforts as Cassius I\I. Clay, of Kentucky, and 
B. G. Brown and F. P. Blair, Jr., of Missouri, were making to 
create an anti-slavery party on slave soil. Long before, this 
had been advocated, theoretically, by Henry Clay and others, 
but now it seemed to be a possible, if not a probable, move. 
This, they held, would relieve the Republicans of the charge 
of sectionalism, while it would lessen the dangers of disunion. 

The copy of this book owned by Lincoln and Herndon — 
the first edition — is now before me, and their markings are 
characteristic of the two men. Lincoln, while noting the sig- 
nificant facts, marked for disapproval those passages pleading 
for violence,^ some of which Herndon underscored as John 



belief that slave labor was cheap labor; that cotton could be best culti- 
vated, along with sugar and rice, by the negro — notably disseminated 
by the cotton gin — sectionalized and commercialized slavery, and made 
it aggressive. But there were Southern Abolitionists from the first, from 
John L. Wilson, of Sumter County, South Carolina, down; and when the 
slave conspiracy became militant and aggressive there was a constant 
stream of Southern people flowing North — such as the Kutledges whom 
Lincoln knew at New Salem — to get away from it. Some day the 
history of Southern anti-slavery sentiment will be written, and it will 
be a startling revelation. 

1 For example: "Of you, the introducers, aiders, and abettors of 
slavery, we demand indemnification for the damage our lands have sus- 
tained on account thereof. The amount of the damage is $7,544,148,825; 
and now. Sirs, we are ready to receive the money. We must have a settle- 
ment" (p. 126). "Do you aspire to become the victims of white nun- 
slave-holding vengeance by day and of barbarous massacre by negroes at 
night?" (p. 128). "Out of our effects you have long since overpaid 
yourselves for your slaves; and now, Sirs, you must emancipate them, or 



160 LINCOLN AND HEENDON 

Brown might have done, the latter erasing a few of his more 
radical markings. Both men knew that the Abolition leaders 
of the North, from Lundy the Quaker, to Brown of Ossawa- 
tomie, had their unknown sympathizers in the South, though 
the latter were struggling in vain against a tyranny even more 
terrible than that which fettered the negro. Southern men 
saw in The Impending Crisis a premonition of an attack upon 
slavery in the States where it existed, and they were not far 
from right. Lincoln questioned the wisdom of its gratuitous 
circulation in 1859 for the same reason. 

Later in the month we find Herndon writing to Parker, ex- 
pressing his approval of two sermons on religious revivals, and 
reporting the dickerings of Douglas for Republican support 
in Illinois. Such propositions to trade served only to confirm 
his suspicions and to redouble his vigilance : 

Springfield, 111., April 17, 1858. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Friend : — This moment I received your two ser- 
mons on the revivals which madded the people. Revivals 
are spasmodic ; they are not guided by reason or philosophy ; 
they die out, leaving the soul in darkness. Or they finally 
prepare the soul for a true, God-revival guided by reason 
and philosophy. I have seen too much and too many of 
these revivals to fear them, or scarcely respect them. I love 
and reverence religion with my whole soul ; it is as deep in 
me as my being; but spasmodic feeling is not religion. It 
is undeveloped feeling, and I respect its source. The first 
sermon is quite appropriate in historical allusion, and the 
second sweeps principles generously and broadly; they are 
both excellent. 



we will emancipate them for you" (p. 129). "Small-pox is a nuisance; 
strychnine is a nuisance; mad dogs are a nuisance; slavery is a nuisance; 
slave-holders are a nuisance, and so are the slave-breeders. We propose 
therefore, with the exception of strychnine, which is the least of all these 
nuisances, to exterminate the catalog from beginning to end" (p. 139). 
"Indeed, it is our honest conviction that all the pro-slavery slave- 
holders, who are alone responsible for the continuance of this baneful in- 
stitution among us, deserve to be at once reduced to a parallel with the 
basest criminals that lie fettered in the cells of public prisons" (p. 1.58). 
And more of the same sort. 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 161 

Friend, I am indebted to you very much — more than I 
have ever told you, concerning tiiis subject. Your guid- 
ance holds me steady, calm, and I look up to God with hope, 
faith philosophized, knowing that what He has made he has 
made out "of a perfect material, for a perfect purpose, and 
for a perfect end," and whose eternal life and laws will 
lead thereto. There may be some special thing that you 
and I may differ about, but that makes no difference. Nev- 
er mind my poor letters, as they are always written in a 
hurry — kind of Quakerish. 

Our politics are getting warm, and Douglas sends out 
feelers to us to trade, but as yet our men stand firm. Prop- 
ositions have abundantly been made, and which I have heard 
read. They do not purport to come from Douglas, but you 
know. You understand, don't you? So soon as I get a 
moment's time I will answer yours more fully, stating some 
other things — that is, what I saw in jail at Alexandria, 
Virginia, etc. Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

On April 21st the Democratic State Convention was held in 
Springfield, and Mr. Herndon was a spectator of its proceed- 
ings. It affirmed that by sound party doctrine the Lecompton 
constitution ought to be "submitted to the direct vote of the 
actual inhabitants of Kansas at a fair election." ^ But when 
resolutions were introduced approving the course of Senator 
Douglas, there was a bolt. The bolters, mostly from Chicago 
and the northern part of the State — many of them Buchanan 
appointees — held a ' ' rump ' ' assembly in another room, and 
called a convention to meet in Springfield on June 9th. This 
closed the door to any reconciliation between the Douglas and 
Buchanan factions ; there was to be war to the hilt. Mr. Hern- 
don wrote : 

In Court, Springfield, 111., April 27, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — This moment I received theAtlantic Monthly, 
and I am tired of the Law. Before me, and just between 
me and the Judge, stands a counsellor who is twisting up his 
mind into knots attempting to sliow the substantial and es- 
sential difference between a traverso w^hose specific qual- 
ities are a certainty to a certain extent in every particular, 
and one whose properties only require certainty to a common 

^Life of Douglas, by J. W. Sheahan, p. 394 (1860). 



162 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

extent in every particular. How he will succeed only 
' ' tweedle dee and tweedle dum ' ' can tell. This barbarism 
to me is utterly disgusting. 

I picked up the Atlantic, and my eye shot to Henry Ward 
Beecher the very first thing, and there I saw my friend 
Parker^ as large as life and as witty and philosophic as 
ever. I shook hands with him, for there he stood, as good- 
natured and as kind as ever. I see you often in the pulpit 
and on the platform, but not often in the reviews. I think 
your criticism very just and very good. I have heard, seen, 
and studied Beecher. His mind is wholly objective, but 
quick in instincts of human feeling. He is strong in senti- 
ment. He is a man of great energy and endurance ; he is 
sagacious but not philosophic. I have not read the book, 
but my wife has. I have no time now. 

We had a great double-headed Democratic meeting here 
■ — one Buchanan and the other Douglas; they are deeply 
inimical, malicious, and withering in their mutual curses. 
Oh ! what a sight ! Plunderers of the people now at bloody 
war with each other over the spoils. The Douglas conven- 
tion was scary, timid and frightened; it acted cowardly. 
Buchanan's was brave, manly, courageous in its hell-deep 
iniquity ; it was Lucifer-like in act and deed, and we in Illi- 
nois anticipate a terrible struggle. Do not forget that it is 
to be war to the knife. No quarters are to be asked or given ; 
and this the Republicans have unanimously and consider- 
ately pondered and agreed to. So look out for squalls. 

I have a letter this day from Friend Greeley; his talk 
about Douglas is policy. He explains and tells us to stand 
to our own men and principles, and to run them, and none 
other — wants Buchanan men beaten more than Douglas 
men. This is private. Our boys here did not like Greeley's 
course, but all is 0. K. now. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Douglas, it seems, had wavered ^ when the administration, in 
its infamous " English Bill," had offered him an opportunity 
to close the rift and unite the party. Pugh of Ohio, who had 
stood with him hitherto, had retreated across the improvised 

1 The reference is to an article by Mr. Parker reviewing a recent 
book, Life Thoughts from the Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher, by a. 
member of his congregation. 

2 Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, pp. 343-345 (1908). 



THE REVOLT OF DOUGLAS 163 

bridge, and Douglas hesitated what to do. He knew that the 
people of Kansas would vote down the land bribe, but he 
feared that he could not convince his constituency in Illinois 
that it was not treacherous to yield. Hence the attitude of 
Greeley in his letter to Mr. Herndon ; but when Douglas de- 
cided to stand firm Greeley renewed his advice to the Illinois 
Republicans. Herndon wrote to Parker : 

Springfield, lU., May 29, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir: — Yours of the 13th is before me and in an- 
swer to which let me say : I would have been highly pleased 
to have met at j'our house a few friends, but as it was I did 
not. My object in visiting Boston was education, and the 
purposes to which that education was to be specially ap- 
plied was — Liberty speeches. I expect to be a Republican 
elector in 1860. I wanted to see the places of Revolutionary 
memory, and the three living institutions of Boston — Gar- 
rison, Parker, and Phillips. So that when I wanted to 
speak of things I could talk knowingly ; and when such men 
as you were thrown in the way of the Republican march, for 
base purposes, and by mean men for infamous ends, I want- 
ed to say to the vile slanderers, ' ' You lie ! " It is all right. 
I do not complain, though I must say that I was somewhat 
disappointed. Do you suppose that this will alter my re- 
spect for you? God forbid! You know me to little pur- 
pose if you think I am so small as that. Here is my hand 
and my heart. Let this matter drop from your fingers into 
the ocean. 

We are to have a Republican convention here, in this city, 
on June 16th. The Buchanan convention comes off here on 
June 7th. We expect to have fun at the latter. Douglas, 
it is said, is to be crushed by the Administration : it does not 
look that way, if we are to judge from what has lately hap- 
pened in Congress. Friend Greeley seems determined that 
this shall not be, if he can help it, though he sacrified the 
Republicans in Illinois. Politicians will use other people's 
paws to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. Greeley injures 
us in Illinois while he is trying to sustain Douglas. I have 
made two political speeches since I saw you — one in this 
city and one at Petersburg — took high grounds for Free- 
dom. Your friend, W. H, Herndon. 



164 L INCOLN AND HERNDON 

On the following day Mr. Herndon received a letttu- from 
Greeley, in reply to a stinging protest against the interference 
of the latter in Illinois politics. If the Republicans will not 
support Douglas for the Senate, he hopes they will stand by 
Harris for the House. The letter reads : 

New York, May 29, 1858. 
Friend Herndon: 

I have yours of the 7th. I have not proposed to instruct 
the Republicans of Illinois in their political duties, and I 
doubt very much that even so much as is implied in your 
letter can be fairly deduced from anything I have written. 

Let me make one prediction. If you run a candidate 
against Harris and he is able to canvass, he will heat you 
hadly. He is more of a man, at heart and morally, than 
Douglas, and has gone into the fight with more earnestness 
and less calculation.' Of the whole Douglas party, he is the 
truest and best. I never have spoken a dozen words with 
him in my life, having met him but once ; but if I lived in 
his district I should vote for him. As I have never spoken 
of him in my paper, and suppose I never shall, I take the 
liberty to say this much to you. Now paddle your own dug- 
out. Yours, Horace Greeley. 

If he had actually left the Illinois Republicans to paddle their 
own canoe, the result might have been different in the autumn, 
but he kept on tossing logs into the stream. By this time it 
had been determined that Lincoln was to make the race for the 
Senate, and, in the picturesque Illinois phrase, ' ' set the prai- 
ries afire " against Douglas. Herndon wrote to Mr. Parker 
describing the situation : 

Springfield, 111., June 1, 1858. 
Friend Parker: 

I want to talk politics with you a moment, leaving all 
other things " way behind." Do you remember, when I 
, was in Boston, I told you that Douglas said, " Do not put 
any confidence in what Greeley says about his information 
in relation to the non-passage of the Lecompton constitu- 
tion? " Has not Douglas proved a prophet once in his vil- 
lainous life ? He told me at the same time that he and the 
Republicans would work together, soon, on some moves — 
that is, Cuba and Central Mexican affairs ; and now as his 



THE EEVOLT OF DOUGLAS 165 

word was good in one particular, let us put a little confi- 
dence in " Hell's dread prophet " on this assertion of his 
about Cuba and Mexico. This is a great world, is it not, my 
friend ? 

We, the Republicans, out here are comparing hands, see- 
ing how w^e feel and stand, so that we may go into the 
" great battle " of 1858-9 in Illinois, between Slavery and 
Freedom, Douglas and Lincoln, Democracy and Repuhlican- 
ism. It will be a life and death fight, so far as Democracy 
is concerned. If she goes gurgling down beneath the red 
waves of slaughter, she is gone forever. Not so with Re- 
publicanism ; she is young, vital and energetic, and so can 
survive defeat — yea, frown on it ; it will stiffen her back- 
bone, harden her pulpy frame. / will do all I can to hold 
the leader's hands up! Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

So matters stood on the eve of the great debates, in which 
Shiloh was fought at Ottawa and Gettysburg at Freeport. Had 
tincoln been a guileless Parsifal in politics, as so many have 
portrayed him, he could not have saved his party in that 
critical hour when the voices of expediency, and the advice 
of friends, pleaded for a lowering of the ideal. Still less could 
he have met the astute, artful, masterful Douglas, whose re- 
sourcefulness was only surpassed by his unctuous and per- 
suasive sophistry. If personal ambition played its part with 
Lincoln, as it has with all men great and small, far more potent 
was the ambition to serve the truth as God gave him to see it. 
Nor did any man ever have a truer partner, a more faithful 
friend, or a more tireless fellow-worker than Herndon. 



CHAPTER Yl 

The Great Debates 

So much lias been written of the Lincoln and Douglas debates 
that the details of the contest are, for the most part, familiar 
to all.^ It was indeed a memorable campaign, alike for the 
importance of the issues involved and for the genius and skill 
of the debaters — though to the nation at large, as compared 
with his opponent, Lincoln seemed, in 1858, to emerge sud- 
denly and unexpectedly from a profound obscurity. His later 
fame has irradiated every detail of his early career; but it 
was the position of Senator Douglas in national affairs, his 
revolt from his party, his obvious ambition for the highest 
honors, together with his power as a debater, that really en- 
chained the attention of the nation. One must needs keep this 
in mind, so completely has the perspective of time reversed 
the aspects of the scene. 

Scarcely less interesting than the debates themselves were 
the preliminary meetings, the maneuvering of forces, and the 

1 Perhaps the best individual account of the campaign is the chapter 
contributed by Mr. Horace White to the second edition of the Herndon 
and Weik biography of Lincoln, in 1892 (Vol. II, Chap. IV). Mr. White 
■was employed as correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, then called the 
Press and Tribune, and wrote from notes made when he was following 
the debaters. But for comprehensiveness and vividness of detail, for 
careful comparison of the texts of the speeches, not less than for news- 
paper excerpts reproducing the human color and partisan rancor of the 
contest, The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, edited by E. E. Sparks, and pub- 
lished under the auspices of the Illinois Historical Society, is by far 
the best portrayal of the campaign. (Collections of the State Historical 
Library of Illinois, Vol. Ill, Lincoln Series, Vol. I, 1908.) The speeches 
are given with all the interruptions, also the songs and slogans of the 
day, together with editorial fulminations, descriptions by correspondents, 
local scenes, and the press comment throughout the country — all with 
admirable discrimination and impartiality. 



THE GREAT DEBATES 167 

marshaling of ideas. The Democratic convention, which met 
in April, was a poltroon assembly, as Herndon described it in 
his letter to Parker. Though largely attended and very en- 
thusiastic in its speeches, it was lamentably weak in its reso- 
lutions, endorsing the course of Douglas, indeed, but express- 
ing not the slightest disapproval of the Buchanan regime. A 
motion to record regret at the course of the Administration 
in removing the friends of Douglas from office in the State, 
was promptly tabled. This was doubtless on the advice of 
Douglas himself, who wished to avoid open rupture, while 
leaving the door ajar for a possible reconciliation. Only two 
offices were at stake — State Treasurer and the Superintend- 
ency of Public Instruction — and W. B. Fondy and former 
Governor French w^ere named for those posts. After which 
the convention adjourned in a mood of contempt for the bolt- 
ers, mingled with fear lest the contagion spread. 

Of the " rump " convention of Buchanan henchmen in 
Springfield on June 9th, little need be said. It was a miserable 
farce, representing only forty-eight of the one hundred conn- 
ties in the State, and, as the Chicago Times added, " Consid- 
ering that the delegates were self-appointed, and that offices 
under the federal government were promised to all who would 
attend, the fact that in fifty-two counties there could not be 
found men mean enough to participate in the proceedings," 
was a tribute to Illinois. Dougherty and Reynolds were 
named for the offices, and resolutions were adopted denounc- 
ing Douglas and characterizing his fight against Buchanan 
as "an act of overweening conceit." John C. Breckenridge 
and Daniel S. Dickinson had been announced as speakers, but 
neither of them appeared. But a telegram was read from 
Dickinson, sending " a thousand greetings," and this, as the 
Douglas men said, was surely liberal enough, being about ten 
to each delegate. Aside from its disclosure of disgustingly 
dirty methods in politics, including lying, bribery, and under- 
handed skunkishness, this movement cut very little figure in 
the campaign. 



168 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

I 

As the date of the Republican convention approached, Lincoln 
became solitary and even sad. Knowing that he was to be 
named as the standard-bearer of his party, and knowing that it 
was a time of crisis both for himself and his cause, he was much 
alone with his thoughts, pondering what to do. Herndon knew 
the moods of his partner — his profound abstraction, his fits 
of silence and gloom — and he respected them to the utmost. 
When he saw that long, gaunt figure sitting for hours in the 
corner of the office, his chair tilted against the wall, his hands 
clasped about his knees, his head bowed, apparently uncon- 
scious of all that was going on, he did not intrude. This time, 
however, abstraction and melancholy seemed to be blended, 
and the younger man watched the outcome with solicitude. 

Slowly and sadly the thinker reviewed in his mind the his- 
tory of slavery aggression, beginning with the effort made to 
denounce the King of Great Britain for establishing slavery 
in the colonies, which the fathers sought to include in the list 
of grievances in the Declaration of Independence. Even then 
there were protests from the South, and that paragraph had 
to be stricken out. That was the first concession to the Slave 
Power. Multitudes of concessions had followed through the 
years, each one granting some special privilege to the Slave 
States, which had only served to whet their appetites for 
more. Gradually the feeling that slavery was an evil to be 
tolerated had given way, for economic reasons, to the feeling 
that it was a necessary institution to be fostered. All down 
the years it had rested like a pall upon the republic — present 
at all disagreements, making a fear and a reservation in all 
public gatherings, holding the best emotions and the widest 
patriotism in thrall. At last it had become boldly, insolently, 
defiantly aggressive, brandishing a threat of disunion when- 
ever its advance was impeded. 

With the renewal of the agitation in 1854, almost every 
variety of opinion had come to exist among the people respect- 
ing slavery and the future of the Union ; for all divined that 



THE GREAT DEBATES 169 

the two were vitally related. Some were for freedom, im- 
mediate and universal, regardless of the Union, and some in 
the same way were for slavery. Others were for the Union, 
regardless of slavery or freedom; while still others foresaw a 
Union in which universal freedom, if not a present blessing, 
would be, at least, an assured, albeit distant, hope and proph- 
ecy. This last class, to which Lincoln belonged, held that 
hy restricting the cause of discord the Union might be steered 
safely between abolitionism and perpetual slavery, to its 
proper destiny. But the signs of such a destiny were not 
propitious. By the terms of the Dred Scott decision all bar- 
riers had been thrown down, all restraint removed, and it 
needed but one further decision to make it unlawful for any 
State to exclude slavery. Whatever others thought, for Lin- 
coln the hour had come to challenge this advance of slavery ; 
and he felt himself to be the man for the hour. 

Having thought the problem through from end to end, he 
began to write, following his curious custom of jotting down 
notes on bits of paper and depositing them in his hat. He was 
never a ready writer, like Herndon, least of all on an occasion 
such as this, when each word had to be carefully weighed in 
the balances of truth and propriety. Mr. Herndon divined 
what he was doing, but did not ask any question or make any 
suggestion. It was his speech accepting the nomination for 
the Senate ; and when he began to transcribe it in orderly form 
he became more cheerful, but not more communicative. When 
he had finished the final draft of the speech, he locked the 
door of the office, drew the curtain across the glass panel in 
the door, and read it to Herndon, pausing at the end of each 
paragraph to await comment. Together they discussed the 
speech, sentence by sentence, though only the first paragraph, 
including the figure of the house divided against itself, caused 
any question. Often he had used it in office conversation, but 
never before in public, except at Bloomington in 1856, when 
Judge T. Lyle Dickey pronounced it a " d fool utter- 
ance. ' ' Remembering that incident, Mr. Herndon remarked : 



170 LINCOLN AND HEENDON 

" It is true, but is it wise or politic to say so? " To which 
Lincoln replied : ^ 

That expression is a truth of all human experience, "a 
house divided against itself cannot stand." The proposi- 
tion is also true, and has been true for six thousand years. 
I want to use some universally known figure expressed in 
simple language as universally well known, that may strike 
home to the minds of men in order to raise them up to the 
peril of the times. I do not believe I M'ould be right in 
changing or omitting it. I would rather be defeated with 
this expression in the speech, and uphold and discuss it be- 
fore the people, than be victorious without it. ' ' 

Against such a spirit, with its disregard of personal conse- 
quences, Hemdon had no heart to protest, though he felt like 
doing so, for he was naturally anxious for Lincoln to win. Here 
was true leadership, lifting still higher the very ideal which 
the party leaders in the East were even then seeking to lower. 
Although his mind was firmly made up, Lincoln called a 
caucus of his friends in the library of the State House and 
read the speech to them, as he had read it to Herndon. One 
by one they pronounced it too radical, predicting that it meant 
defeat in that it gave Douglas just the opportunity he coveted, 
while at the same time it would alienate many Anti-Lecompton 
Democrats. They pointed out that the situation was different 
from what it was in 1854, for though he had missed the vic- 
tory itself at that time, the fruits of the victory had accrued 
to the cause in the election of Trumbull; whereas now both 
the victory and its fruits would be lost to Douglas, whom they 
were so eager to defeat. Not one endorsed the wisdom of mak- 
ing the speech except Herndon, who, after listening to these 
protests, exclaimed: "Lincoln, deliver that speech as read, and 
it will make you President ! " So he reports himself foretell- 
ing, though the prophecy is weakened somewhat by the fact 
that it was recorded some years after the marvelous fulfilment. 
But there is no doubt that Herndon strongly backed his part- 
ner in this move, as in all others of like kind; for it was his 
mission to embody the ever-present moral protest against slav- 

1 Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. II, p. 67. 



THE GREAT DEBATES 171 

ery, and he did not fail to keep this side of the question alive 
in the soul of his friend,^ 

But none of these things moved Lincoln. After listening 
to his friends, he rose from his chair and made a brief talk in 
which, after alluding to the thought and care with which he 
had prepared the speech, he replied to all objections by saying 
that the time had come when those sentiments should be ut- 
tered, and added: "If it is decreed that I should go down 
because of this speech, then let me go down linked to the 
truth — let me die in the advocacy of what is just and right. ' ' 
Dr. William Jayne, who was present at this conference, gives 
a fuller report of the remarks of Lincoln, adding to other 
versions the following, which has every mark of authenticity : 

I regret that my friend Herndon is the only man among you 
who coincides with my views and purposes of the propriety 
of making this speech; but I have determined in my own 
mind to make this speech, and in arriving at this determina- 
tion I cheerfully admit to you that I am moved to this pur- 
pose by the noble sentiments expressed in those beautiful 
lines of AVilliam Cullen Bryant in his poem on "The Battle- 
field." (He then quoted six verses, emphasizing this one: 

Nor heed the shaft too surely cast. 
The foul and hissing bolt of scorn ; 

For with thy side shall dwell at last 
The victory of endurayice horn.) 

Continuing, he said: I am aware that many of our 
friends, and all of our political enemies, will say like Scipio 
I am " carrying the war into Africa ; ' ' but that is an inci- 
dent of politics which none of us can help, but it is an in- 
cident which in the long run will be forgotten and ignored. 
We believe that every human being, whatever may be his 
color, is born free, and that every human soul has an in- 
alienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 
The Apostle Paul said, "The just shall live by faith." 
This doctrine, laid down by St. Paul, was taken up by the 
greatest reformer of the Christian era, Martin Luther, and 
was adhered to with a vigor and fidelity never surjjassed 
until it won a supreme victory, the benefits and advantages 
of which we are enjoying today. 



AlraJiam Lincohi, by D. J. Snider, p. 405 (1908). 



172 LINCOLN AND HEBNDQN 

I lay down these propositions in the speech I propose to 
make and risk the chance of winning a seat in the United 
States Senate because I believe the propositions are true, 
and that ultimately we shall live to see, as Bryant says, 
* ' The victory of endurance born. ' ' ^ 

On June 16th, the Republican State convention assembled 
in Springfield, and it was an enthusiastic body. Nearly six 
hundred delegates were present, and they, with their alter- 
nates, completed a round thousand of earnest men, gathered 
from all parts of the State.^ Aside from the Senatorial ques- 
tion, there was but little interest in the proceedings. Gustave 
Koerner was made chairman by unanimous vote — a reward, as 
he frankly confessed, for having written the article dissecting 
Douglas for the Anzeiger des Westens six months before.' 
James Miller and Newton Bateman were named for the two 
offices to be filled, emphatic approval was given to the course 
of Senator Trumbull, and a series of resolutions was adopted 
as a platform. As only the members of the Legislature were 
to be elected, the convention was ready to adjourn, but a 
thrilling incident delayed it. Delegates from Cook County 
appeared with a banner upon wliich was inscribed, ''Cook 
County for Abram Lincoln for United States Senator!" Evi- 
dently this had been carefully planned and well timed, for 
Norman Judd, in a very happy address, referred to the sig- 
nificance of this banner. Whereupon a delegate from Peoria 
arose, and, waving a flag on which was printed the word ' ' Illi- 
nois," moved that it be nailed over "Cook County," making 
the l^anner read, ' ' Illinois for Abraham Lincoln ! ' ' And it was 
so done, amidst cheers three times three and three extra, after 
which a resolution was adopted declaring : 

That Abraham Lincoln is our first and only choice for Unit- 
ed States Senator to fill the vacancy ahout to he created hy 
the retirement of Stephen A. Douglas.'^ 



^ Abrahajn Lincoln, by Wm. Jayne, pp. 42-3 (1908). 
2 Life of Lincoln, by J. G. Holland, p. 159 (1866). 
s Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, Vol. II, pp. .56-7 (1909). 
* Just when Lincoln began to dream of the Presidency is not definitely 
known; but almost certainly not until after his debates with Douglas. 



THE GREAT DEBATES 173 

This direct nomination of Lincoln was unusual, as if the 
election of a Senator were to be decided by popular vote; 
but many things lay behind it. That all present were em- 
barrassed by persistent hints of a coalition with Douglas, there 
is no question. It was not according to the wish of many of 
the delegates to make such a formal nomination, yet, as Doug- 
las had intimated that it was the intention to use the name of 
Lincoln in the canvass, and to adopt another name in the Leg- 
islature, all precedents were cast aside. ^ Hence this ringing 
resolution, with its emphasis upon "our first and only choice," 
which not only hushed the busy rumors of fusion, but put the 
political life of Douglas in jeopardy from that hour. Thence- 
forth not only the issues, but the personalities of the campaign 
stood out clearly defined, and this added zest to the contest. 
Still, as we shall see, Douglas, while dealing in denunciation 
on the stump, continued to dicker with Republican leaders out- 
side the State to the end. 

In the evening the hall of the State House was packed to 
excess awaiting the speech of Lincoln, which inspired more 
of fear among his friends than among his foes. Today those 
solemn opening words rise up before us and march with the 
foot-fall of destiny, and even to the men who heard them, on 
that summer evening, they seemed heavy with awful proph- 
ecies. If radicalism means rootedness, then Lincoln went as 
straight as a line of light to the root of the national discord, 
while at the same time he saved his party from apostasy and 
ruin. Slowly and impressively he read his speech, beginning 
after the manner of Webster in his reply to Hayne, which had 
served him as a model : 

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are 
tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do 
it. We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was 



During this convention a poll of the delegates was taken to ascertain 
their preference for President, and the name of Lincoln was not in the 
list of favorites, though Trumbull received a number of votes. Seward 
led, and other names mentioned were Fremont, McLean, Chase, and 
Bissell. 

1 Life of Lincoln, by J. G. Holland, p. 160 (1866). 



174 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

initiated with the avowed object and confident promise of 
putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation 
of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but 
has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, 
until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A 
house divided against itself cannot stand. ' ' I believe this 
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half 
free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not 
expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. 
Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest 
in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; 
or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become 
alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new — North as 
well as South.^ 

From one point of view this paragraph was a tactical blun- 
der, but time proved that his straightforwardness was, after 
all, the best strategy. Indeed, the speech was more remark- 
able for its conservatism than for its radicalism, since it did 
not demand the abolition of slavery, but only a restriction of 
the evil within the original limit assigned to it, in the hope 
that it would finally disappear. Of course he did not foresee 
how Douglas would so twist his words as to make it appear 
that he was foisting the alternatives of a divided Union or a 
uniformity of custom; "all one thing or all the other." 
Neither idea had been in his mind, nor did he set any date 
when slavery would at last cease to be. All else was left out 
of mind in his attempt to focus attention upon the spread of 
slavery as the cause of discord, and a threat of disunion. 

1 Of course this idea was not new. Beecher, Parker, and others had 
used similar expressions at various times in the North. Four months 
later Mr. Seward, in his famous Eochester speech, October 25, summed 
up the situation as "an irrepressible conflict," and his phrase became 
a slogan, while the New York Herald denounced him as "an arch agi- 
tator of a bloody program." — Life of Seward, by Frederick Bancroft, 
Vol. I, pp. 461-3 (1900). Even the Eichmond Enquirer, which Lincoln 
read regularly, had said something of the kind as early as 1856 {Consti- 
tutional History, by Von Hoist, Vol. VI, p. 299), and Wade had told the 
Senate that " Slavery must now become general, or it must cease to be 
at all." — Alraham Lincoln, by J. T. Morse, Vol. I, p. 119 (1896). 



THE GREAT DEBATES ]75 

Reviewing recent history, he defined "squatter sovereign- 
ty" as a doctrine which said that "If any one man choose to 
enslave another no third man shall be allowed to object." AH 
that Douglas demanded, as the vital issue of his campaign, 
was that Kansas should have a fair vote on the Lecompton 
constitution. But, as Lincoln showed, the issue upon the Le- 
compton constitution was one of fact, whose solution one way 
or the other left uns^^ttled the real question whether slavery 
should be restricted or whether it should be left free to ex- 
tend itself. Nor was Douglas the man to settle this question, 
for he had declared in the Senate that he did not care whether 
slavery was voted up or down. Putting recent events to- 
gether, Lincoln charged the Democracy with a conspiracy to 
make slavery universally lawful. This conspiracy began with 
the repeal of the Missouri Compact, and had been consum- 
mated, so far as the Territories were concerned, by the Dred 
Scott ^ decision, which declared the extension of slavery to 
be an indispensable condition of the maintenance of the Union. 
Only one thing was needed to complete the intrigue, and that 
was a decision afifirming the same to be true of the States. 
Nor did he hesitate to predict that such a decision would be 
forthcoming, unless the present dynasty were overthrown. 

All through his speech, it was plain that Lincoln feared the 
influence of Greeley hardly less than the devices of Douglas. 
Nor was this fear without a basis, for the New York Tribune 
was read all over Illinois, especially in the northern and cen- 
tral parts — many farmers, it was said, waiting until the paper 

1 The convention which nominated Lincoln had expressed * * con- 
demnation of the principles and tendencies of the extra-judicial opinions 
of the majority of the judges," as putting forth a " political heresy." 
— Life of Lincoln, by J. G. Holland, p. 159 (1866). Before that S. P. 
Chase had said that, if the courts would not overthrow the pro-slavery 
construction of the Constitution, the people would do so, even if it should 
' * be necessary to overthrow the courts. ' ' — Life of Chase, by R. B. 
Warden, p. 313 (1874). Many anti-slavery men never did forgive Judge 
Taney for his decision in the Dred Scott case. When he died, in 1864, 
Sumner made protest on the floor of the Senate against paying him the 
usual honors accorded to a member of the Supreme Court. — Twenty Years 
of Congress, by J. G. Blaine, Vol. I, pp. 135-6 (1884). 



176 L INCOLN AND HERNDON 

came to know their political opinions. Despite the repeated 
protests of Herndon and others, Greeley persisted in lauding 
Douglas for his fight against Buchanan, intimating that he 
might be the pilot, raised up by fate, to steer the ship of state 
safely between the Scylla of abolitionism and the Charybdis 
of perpetual slavery. Hence the closing remarks of Lincoln : 

There are those who denounce us openly to their own 
friends, yet whisper to us softly, that Senator Douglas is the 
aptest instrument there is to effect that object. They wish 
us to infer all, from the fact that he now has a little quarrel 
with the present head of the dynasty; and that he has reg- 
ularly voted with us on a single point, upon which he and 
we have never differed. They remind us that he is a great 
man, and that the largest of us are very small ones. Let 
this be granted. But "a living dog is better than a dead 
lion." Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is 
at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the 
advances of slavery? He doesn't care anything about it. 
His avowed mission is impressing the "public heart" to 
care nothing about it. . . . For years he has labored to 
prove it a sacred right of white men to take negro slaves 
into the new Territories. . . . Senator Douglas holds, we 
know, that a man may rightfully be wiser to-day than he 
was yesterday — that he may rightfully change when he 
finds himself wrong. But can we, for that reason, run 
ahead, and infer that he will make any particular change, 
of which he, himself, has given no intimation ? . . , Now, 
as ever, I wish not to misrepresent Judge Douglas's posi- 
tion, question his motives, or do aught that can be person- 
ally offensive to him. Wlienever, if ever, he and we can 
come together on principle, so that our cause may have as- 
sistance from his great ability, I hope to have interposed 
no adventitious obstacle. But clearly, he is not with us — 
he does not pretend to be — he does not promise ever to be. 
Onr cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, 
its own undoubted friends — those whose hands are free, 
whose hearts are in the work — who do care for the re- 
sult. ... If we stand firm, we shall not fail. "Wise coun- 
sels may accelerate, or mistakes delay it, but, sooner or 
later, the victory is sure to come. 

But, judging from the feeling among the delegates following 
this speech, the victory on such a platform was sure to be 



THE GREAT DEBATES 177 

late in coming. Leonard Swett and others boldly predicted 
defeat from the outset, while Judge Dickey was chagrined 
that Lincoln, on so important an occasion, had "worked in 

that d fool utterance." Even so stalwart and noble a 

man as E. B. Washburne, who had thought it unwise to nom- 
inate Lincoln ^ — still clinging to the belief that Douglas was 
at heart an anti-slavery man, and one to be trusted — held that 
the speech was fatal. Many were of this opinion all through 
the campaign, and in Springfield it made Lincoln quite un- 
popular, though it must be said that he had not been a favor- 
ite in his own city since 1856. But now, however, there were 
new cold shoulders turned toward him, including some of those 
who were afterwards so proud to speak of him as " our rela- 
tive," which he was by marriage.^ 

Nothing daunted, Lincoln and Herndon set about prepar- 
ing for the campaign. Each made for himself a little pocket 
scrap-book, in which they pasted such clippings from the 
papers as they wished to use, and noted down dates, facts, and 
other items of value. One has only to go through these little 
books, both of w^hich are owned by Jesse W. Weik, to see 
how carefully they armed themselves with data, how closely 
they had studied the speeches of Douglas, and how alert they 
were in making "the little dodger" undo himself in his own 
words ; and it was from his scrap book that Lincoln did most 
of his reading on the stump. Two days after the convention 
Mr. Herndon sent a copy of the "fatal" speech to Theodore 
Parker, with a note telling him that "the convention was the 
largest and best ever held in the State — more talent and more 
virtue." Parker replied at once, rejoicing that Douglas was 
doomed to fall between stools : 

"Newton Center, Mass., July 1, 1858. 
Mr. Herndon. 

My Dear Sir: — Many thanks for your letter and for the 
admirable speech of Mr. Lincoln. I think I shall congrat- 
ulate you on his Senatorial dignity next winter. Douglas 
has made a great mistake. Had he gone clear over to the 



iLi/e 0/ Lincoln, by W. H. Lamon, pp. 395-6 (1872). 
2 Life of Lincoln, by W. IT. Lamon, pp. 407-8 (1872). 



178 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Republican platform, confessed his sins and asked pardon, 
the generous people would have forgiven. But now he is 
neither Republican nor Democrat. It seems to me he is in 
a bad position, whence I see no retreat or advance. Never 
tliink of praising me for what I said, and so oblige, 

Yours truly, Theo. Parker. 

II 

Many things during this campaign lend color to the belief 
that, from the first, Lincoln had little hope of being actually 
elected. No one knew better than he the precariousness of 
his prospects, and the reasons were succinctly stated by J. L. 
Scripps, his first biographer. The sympathy entertained for 
Douglas by prominent Republicans in other parts of the coun- 
try; the odor of free-soil which he had collected in his gar- 
ments during the recent session of Congress, notwithstanding 
his obstinate and blind adherence to the Dred Scott decision ; 
the universal favor to which he had been commended by the 
persecutions of the Administration; the flagrant apportion- 
ment of the State into legislative districts, by which ninety- 
three thousand people in the Republican counties were virtual- 
ly disfranchised — all these things combined to give a very un- 
promising complexion to the campaign.^ Of this last obstacle 
Mr. Herndon spoke in his reply to Parker, expressing doubt 
as to the outcome : 

Springfield, 111., July 8, 1858. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Friend: — I thank you for yours of July 1st, and 
agree with you that Douglas has blundered. We feel that 
he has committed great faults, and cannot ever recover 
therefrom. He is dead. Had we a fair apportionment in 
this State we Republicans could beat him twenty on joint 
ballot; but as it is, the apportionment having been made 
when we were very young and wild — not so densely pop- 
ulated as now — he may defeat us. There are some com- 
plications, which it would take too long to explain, that 
hinder us. Some old Senators, elected long ago, hold over, 



^ Life of Lincoln, by J. L. Scripps; New York Tribun-e Tracts, No 
6, p. 24 (1860). 



THE GREAT DEBATES 179 

and whose districts have been revolutionized: they belong 
to the Republicans, but there is no way of reaching the 
evil. Time will set us right, and give us our rights. Our 
State ticket will be elected without much trouble; but as 
to Lincoln there may be some doubts. These doubts will 
energize us, fire us, move us. 

Mr. Lincoln's speech is quite compact, nervous, eloquent; 
it is the best expression of Republicanism, as at present or- 
ganized, that I have seen. Stump orators will take higher 
and more lofty grounds. Prudence is written all over the 
political world, and we cannot help it. Do not blame us 
for not jumping higher just now. Remember your great 
law of the historic continuity of the development of ideas, 
and then you will say, ' ' All is right. ' ' 

Douglas is not a Democrat: he is not a Republican: he 
is nowhere. Do you remember my former letters? He is 
trying to build up a third party, or trying to re-organize 
one out of the fragmentary elements, North and South. 
He is crazy : God has made His organizations and Douglas 
cannot unmake them. Thank God for your speech — have 
re-read it : it is quite good. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Meanwhile, Douglas had been resting in the East, visiting his 
mother, and, it was said, gathering the sinews of war. Hav- 
ing matured his plans, he returned to Chicago on the 9th of 
July, where his followers had arranged a royal reception for 
him. On his way thither, he was met by a delegation of his 
friends at Michigan City who took him captive and conducted 
him on a special train to his destination. He entered the city 
amid the booming of cannon and the fluttering of flags, and 
was accompanied to the Tremont House by a military escort. 
From balconies and windows along the streets the shouts of 
thousands echoed in his ears. More flattering, if possible, 
was the immense throng that gathered about the hotel in the 
evening to hear his promised speech. Douglas was highly 
gratified, remembering his former reception, and indeed a man 
of far less vanity would have been moved by such a scene. 
In a skilful speech, egotistical at times to the point of brag- 
gadocio, he opened the campaign. Knowing that he was in a 
Republican stronghold, he dwelt with elaborate complacency. 



180 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

which was perhaps pardonable, upon his brave and manly 
fight against a hated Administration in its effort to fetter 
Kansas. But he claimed an equal victory over the Repub- 
licans in Congress, since they had voted for the Crittenden- 
Montgomery bill, which permitted Kansas to decide for itself 
whether it would have slavery or freedom. Such repeated 
triumphs of the sacred principle of "popular sovereignty" 
led the speaker naturally from self-glorification to prophecy, 
and he predicted that the Republicans would soon come over 
to his side, as many of them had already done, dropping their 
fancy as to the exclusion of slavery from the Territories in 
behalf of his great dogma. Nor was this prediction without 
reason, if we may judge from the havoc he was working in 
that party in the East, where he had won to his side such men 
as Greeley and Wilson. No doubt this would have been large- 
ly the result had it not been for Lincoln, who was sitting just 
behind the speaker but within the house, listening. 

Referring to his opponent, Douglas assumed a posture of 
courtesy and said, somewhat condescendingly, if we may trust 
report: "I take great pleasure in saying that I have known, 
personally and intimately, for about a quarter of a century, 
the worthy gentleman who has been nominated for my place, 
and I will say that I regard him as a kind, amiable, and in- 
telligent gentleman, a good citizen and an honorable oppo- 
nent ; and whatever issue I may have with him will be of prin- 
ciple and not involving personalities." This last prediction, 
however, was doomed to fail of fulfilment before the campaign 
was half over. 

But this compliment, doubtful enough, was the prelude 
to a savage and sophistical attack upon the speech of Lincoln 
before the Springfield convention, which Douglas described 
as "a speech well prepared and carefully written." It must 
have been irritating to Lincoln to sit still while the solemn 
opening words of that speech were diverted, if not perverted, 
into a call "to a war of sections, a war of the North against 
the South," and a demand for a uniformity of customs in the 
nation; as if slavery were only a local custom. Such uni- 



THE GREAT DEBATES 181 

formity of local custom meant, he insisted, the blotting out of 
State sovereignty, and the merging of all the States into an 
empire, which was opposed to all the teachings of the fathers. 
Coming to the Dred Scott case, which was the flaw in the 
Douglas armor, in that it had already virtually blotted out 
State sovereignty, the artful speaker vaulted over it with the 
remark, uttered with great show of impressiveness, that he 
"had no idea of appealing from the decision of the Supreme 
Court upon a constitutional question to the decision of a 
tumultuous town meeting. ' ' That was ever his method : if he 
could not elucidate a point he would fatally befog it for his 
opponent ; and so skilful was he in this art, that it would have 
been impossible for any man of the same type to meet him, 
without being destroyed in the first encounter.^ But Lincoln, 
it need hardly be said, was not of the same type. 

On the following evening Lincoln replied to Douglas from 
the balcony of the same hotel, and a vast throng greeted him 
with lusty cheers. If his lack of skill in the practice of soph- 
istry seemed a disadvantage, it was soon evident to all that 
he knew how to pick "the Little Dodger" up on the point of 
his logic. Nor was it long before even the friends of Douglas 
felt that the Senator would have to come down off his "high 
horse" and appeal from the decision of the Supreme Court to 
many a tumultuous town meeting. This must be counted 
among the victories of Lincoln, though it could not have been 
achieved in ordinary times, for to attack a decision of the 
Supreme Court is not easy to do against an experienced de- 
bater like Douglas. But he was plainly on the defensive when 
he came to deal with the deductions drawn by Douglas from 
his figure of a house divided against itself. Already that ut- 
terance had created something resembling a panic in his own 
party, and Lincoln was in a place where he had to hold the 
support of Lovejoy without losing the support of men who re- 
garded Lovejoy as a fanatic. Illinois was itself a house divid- 
ed against itself, half Northern and half Southern in feeling ; 
and even in the northern part, while opposition to the exten- 



Twenty Years of Congress, by .T. G. Blaine, Vol. I, p. 145 (1884). 



182 LINCOLN AND HERNDQN 

sion of slavery was pronounced, there was but little sjmipathy 
with extreme abolitionism. Douglas knew this, but he dis- 
covered later, in their joint debates, that it was unwise to press 
Lincoln on this point. For as often as he did so, just so often 
did Lincoln repeat that terrible prophecy, and always with a 
solemn earnestness which made the hearts of men stand still. 

At once Douglas mapped out his itinerary and set out to 
conquer Illinois, with Lincoln hot upon his trail. Having the 
Illinois Central Railroad on his side, with a special car at his 
disposal, he traveled in state. Trimmed with flags and bunt- 
ing, his luxurious coach sped from town to town, with a plat- 
form car attached bearing a twelve-pound cannon to fire 
salutes. Brass bands and colored banners heralded his com- 
ing, and committees of distinguished citizens headed by 
mayors received him with every token of jubilation and pomp. 
No hero returning from the wars was ever hailed with greater 
ovations than the champion of "popular sovereignty." Once, 
as the decorated car of Douglas swept by, Lincoln, side-tracked 
in a freight train, said with a chuckle: "The gentleman in 
that turnout evidently smelt no royalty in our carriage ! ' ' 

So journeying, they arrived at Bloomington, an old Whig 
stronghold, where Douglas, speaking in the afternoon, remind- 
ed his hearers that Lincoln had within a short time abandoned 
the Whig party, and had joined with Lyman Trumbull, who 
had deserted the Democrats, in an organized effort to abolition- 
ize the State. With an air of triumph he magnified the enor- 
mity of this desertion, not knowing, apparently, that nearly 
the whole town had been guilty of the same crime. His speech 
was engagingly ingenious, but it verged upon bathos at the 
end when he described himself as standing beside the death-- 
bed of Henry Clay and receiving the parting blessing of that 
immortal Whig — as once before he had pictured himself per- 
forming the same office for "the god-like Webster." Lincoln 
followed with an effective speech in the evening, in which he 
not only lodged an emphatic demurrer against the quibbles of 
Douglas, but stated his case with great earnestness and power. 

The next day, rainy and sultry, found them at Springfield, 



THE GREAT DEBATES 183 

the home of Lincoln and a Douglas stronghold. Once more 
Lincoln followed his opponent with a telling speech, mixing 
humor, logic, facts, and satire. As for the right of the people 
to govern themselves in ordinary matters, about which Doug- 
las was wont "to stand up in majesty, and go through his 
apotheosis and become a god," that was a principle which 
neither man nor mouse was opposing. But slavery was no 
ordinary matter, and the Dred Scott decree had made such 
unctuous devotion to the dogma of "popular sovereignty" a 
quixotic absurdity. So deeply had he pressed this point at 
Chicago that Douglas had already begun to slide down from 
his "high horse," far enough at least to make two very ear- 
nest appeals from Judge Taney to the voters of Illinois. 
Speaking of "the small trappings of the campaign," Lincoln 
did not fail to note that the Democrats with "their thunder- 
ings of cannon, their marching and music, the fizzlegigs and 
fireworks," were trying to carry the State by mere brute noise. 
Among the disadvantages under which he labored he men- 
tioned the unfair apportionment of the State, which the Legis- 
lature had refused to correct. And there was another disad- 
vantage : 

Senator Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious 
politicians of his party, or who have been of his party, 
have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, 
to be the President of the United States. They have seen 
in his round, jolly, fruitful face, postofifices, land-offices, 
marshalships and cabinet appointments, chargeships and 
foreign missions, bursting and spouting out in wonderful 
exuberance, ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. 
And as they have gazed upon this attractive picture so 
long, they cannot, in the little distraction that has taken 
place in the party, bring themselves to give up the charm- 
ing hope ; but with greedier anxiety they rush about him, 
sustain him, give him marches, triumphal entries, and re- 
ceptions beyond what even in the days of his highest pros- 
perity they could have brought about in his favor. On the 
contrary, nobody ever expected me to be President. In 
my poor, lean, lank face, nobody has ever seen that any 
cabbages were sprouting out. 

That his blows were being felt was shown by the fact that the 



184 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Democratic papers began to say, derisively, that he could not 
get a crowd except by following in the wake of the great 
Senator. Ti|e truth is that he was doing all within his power 
to provoke a challenge from Douglas to a combat of debate, 
but his wily foe was not disposed to invite such a contest. 
Perhaps Douglas had too vivid a recollection of past en- 
counters to desire a repetition of them ; otherwise he would not 
have waited for a challenge, but would himself have thrown 
down the glove to Lincoln as soon as he entered the State. 
At last, on July 24th, Lincoln sent him a note, suggesting that 
they divide time and address the same audiences during the 
canvass. This meant that every meeting thenceforward, to 
the end of the campaign, should be a joint debate. Rumor 
was rife that Douglas did not wish to engage in debate, and 
had said so privately. 

Certainly he was loath to accept. He was aware that such 
a contest, with the eyes of the nation fixed upon it, would 
make Lincoln a national figure ; that, as he remarked, " If he 
gets the best of the debate — and I wailt to say he is the ablest 
man the Republicans have got — I shall lose everything and 
Lincoln will gain everything. ' ' While, in public, he might refer 
to Lincoln, patronizingly, as an " amiable and intelligent gen- 
tleman," he knew the power of the man when he sai(i to his 
friends in private : "I shall have my hands full. He is the 
strong man of his party — full of wit, facts, dates — and the best 
stump speaker, with his droll ways and dry jokes, in the West. 
He is as honest as he is shrewd, and, if I beat him, my victory 
will be hardly won. ' ' ^ Then, too, Douglas had expected to 
come home to an easy, triumphant campaign, in the warmth 
of approval for his really gallant fight against Buchanan: he 
did not wish, as Lincoln was evidently forcing him to do, to 
discuss his own record, least of all the moral issue of slavery ; 
and it was only human that he should hesitate to take up such 
a task as Lincoln has set for him. But he knew that if he 
declined the challenge on any grounds whatever, he would lose 
the battle. 



Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johuson, p. 352 (1908). 



THE GREAT DEBATES 185 

Nor was it without mingled feelings that Lincoln had sent 
his note of challenge. He knew that Douglas had the ad- 
vantage of position, and the prestige of great and long con- 
tinued success; that the power of money, which always sup- 
ports the conservative and aristocratic side, was with him; 
that he had unusual arts of sophistry and subterfuge, making 
him difficult to meet in debate, even by such men as Seward, 
Sumner, and Chase. Besides, he knew that, while in the abil- 
ity to hit straight and hard blows he was the equal of Doug- 
las, "the long, labored movements" of his own mind, of which 
he used to talk to Herndon, made him deficient in quick and 
nimble fencing. He was keenly conscious, as well, of the con- 
trast between the dazzling fame of Douglas and his own hum- 
ble lot in the world. ''With me," he said, with a shadow of 
sadness on his dark yellow face, "the race of ambition has 
been a failure — a flat failure ; with him it has been one of 
splendid success. His name fills the nation, and is not un- 
known even in foreign lands. I affect no contempt for the 
high eminence he has reached — so reached that the oppressed 
of my species might have shared with me in the elevation, 1 
would rather stand on that eminence than wear the richest 
crown that ever pressed a monarch's brow."^ Still, he was 
not unmindful of the opportunity to send his name afar, but 
he seems to have been honestly more eager to plead his great 
cause in a national forum than to gain personal renown. 
Such a debate was not to be lightly entered upon, but Lincoln 
was ready for it, having prepared his speeches while watching 
the flies on the ceiling of his back office. 

While declining to divide all his time, Douglas agreed to 
seven joint debates to be held, with two exceptions, in the 
central part of the State, where the real battle was to be 
fought. He intimated, rather unfairly, that Lincoln had pur- 
posely waited until he had arranged his itinerary, and hinted 
the possibility of a third candidate with whom Lincoln might 
make common cause. In reply Lincoln resented the imputa- 
tion of unfairness, but agreed to the seven debates, leaving 



Life of Lincoln, by W. H. Lauion, pp. 408-9 (1872). 



186 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Douglas to name the dates and places. Douglas selected Ot 
tawa, Freeport, Jonesboro, Charleston, Galesburg, Quincy, and 
Alton, two debates to be held in August, two in September, 
and three in October. Lincoln acceded, somewhat grudgingly, 
as the scheme, so arranged, gave Douglas four openings and 
closings to his three ; though that was not unfair, since he had 
been "closing in" upon the Senator, as one of his friends put 
it, for two weeks. On the same day that Lincoln sent his note 
to Douglas, Herndon wrote to Mr. Parker : 

Springfield, 111., July 24, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I this day received your Fourth of July ora- 
tion. I thank you most sincerely. I have read it carefully, 
and say that it is most excellent, quite eloquent. We are 
approaching a very animated, warm, energetic canvass ; and 
if it does not get into personalities it will be a great, and, 
I think, grand canvass. I fear, however, that personalities 
will creep into the debates. Mr. Lincoln takes broader 
and deeper grounds than he did in the Springfield speech. 
I told you the speakers would do so, and even Lincoln had 
to follow. The canvass opens deep and rich; but we Re- 
publicans have a clever villain to combat. Douglas is an 
ambitious and an unscrupulous man ; he is the greatest liar 
in all America; he misrepresents Lincoln throughout, and 
our people generally are not logical enough to see the pre- 
cise manner, point and issue of the deception. He holds 
up in glowing letters "squatter sovereignty," which he 
knows is dead and buried under the Dred Scott case. It 
suits his purpose, however, and he fiddles on it quite cun- 
ningly and shrewdly. Politics is a great game and delu- 
sion is its greatest power. The politician who knows the 
game and can use that delusion the cunningest, is the great- 
est man. Hurrah for politics — Bah ! 

I spoke in this city on Thursday evening to a crowded 
house — spoke to the Republican young men. I am the 
young man's friend, and am not without influence among 
them. I shall always use it for the Eternal Right, popular 
or unpopular. Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

All during this exciting and bitter contest Herndon was alert, 
tireless, and immensely useful, for his position made it possible 
for him to do many things that Lincoln could not do; many 



THE GREAT DEBATES 187 

things indeed, that Lincoln would not do, but most of which he 
approved. Early and late the junior partner was busy 
writing editorials, working tricks on pro-slavery papers,^ or- 
ganizing clubs, feeling the popular pulse — for which he had a 
rare gift — and looking up facts, dates, and history for his 
chief. Again and again Lincoln telegraphed or wrote to the 
office for information, and Herndon was invariably ready with 
it. No task was too difficult, none too exacting or exhausting, 
for him to undertake in behalf of the cause and its leader, with 
an enthusiasm inspired equally by political principle and per- 
sonal friendship. Besides, he found time to do some very ef- 
fective work on the stump, journeying all over central Illinois 
and speaking to vast throngs. 

As an orator Herndon was picturesque and impressive, of 
resonant voice and dignified bearing, rapid in his thought, 
vivid in his imagery, multi-colored in his rhetoric ; less logical 
than Lincoln, but more facile ; more restrained than Lovejoy, 
but hardly less radical; a man who held great audiences and 
swayed them with ease. On a sultry summer evening early in 
the campaign he spoke at Petersburg, when Donati's comet, 
then touring the sky, was visible in unusual splendor. After 
speaking for nearly three hours, he turned to the comet and 
addressed it in a graphic peroration. Sketching the state of 
society when it had last appeared, and the changes wrought 
during its absence, he appealed to the heavenly pilgrim to in- 
form its sisterhood of the things about to be done in the name 
of God and human liberty. Those who heard him that even- 
ing went away instructed, solemnized, and exalted. But he 
could be argumentative also, as witness the speech referred 
to in his letter to Mr. Parker : 

Springfield, 111., July 28, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I told you a few days ago of a speech that I 
made to our Republican club here. I send you a line cut 
from the Illinois Journal, which gives one phase of that 
speech. I really think it is law, and am going to urge it on 
the stump, ready to back it up by analogy, reason, and the 
1 Abraham Lincoln, by Herndou and "Weik, Vol. II, pp. 38-9. 



188 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

constitution. If the Democracy can carry this case, the in- 
humanity to the blacks, and the denial of the constitutional 
rights of the ivhites, if they can enslave all the Territories 
under the title of "sacred right of self-government," and 
if they can do as they have done in Kansas for four years 
in the name of constitutional law, then they can enslave 
the white man and deshrine God under the name of Democ- 
racy, I send you these clippings to let you know that I 
am on duty. Will soon take the stump and go over the 
State, or at least the central part of it. 

Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

In brief, his argument was that by act of Congress, in 1789, 
the Federal courts were given cognizance of suits of a civil 
nature at common law or in equity, where the suit was be- 
tween citizens of different States. But the Supreme Court, in 
the Dred Scott case, had decided that a negro was not a cit- 
izen, and for that reason could not sue. As, however, by the 
terms of the act, both parties to the suit must be citizens, if 
the negro was incapable of suing, he was equally incapable of 
being sued. So that, if a negro in Illinois owed a white man 
in Missouri a sum of money, which he refused to pay, there 
was no recourse at law. Thus the Dred Scott decree, by plac- 
ing a disability upon negroes, had worked a glaring outrage 
upon the white man, leaving him without remedy in the Fed- 
eral courts, while it made the negro wholly irresponsible for 
his contracts. And with this point Herndon goaded his Dem- 
ocratic foes until the votes were cast. 

At Springfield Douglas had noticed, for the first time, the 
charge of Lincoln that he and his party leaders were con- 
spirators plotting to make slavery national, remarking that he 
did not think so badly of the President and the Supreme 
Court. Thereupon Lincoln had made the charge more specific 
by adding that Douglas had "left a niche in the Nebraska 
Bill to receive the Dred Scott decision," which declared that 
a Territorial Legislature could not abolish slavery. Douglas 
was not slow to discover that the charge, left in this shape, was 
beginning to hurt. So, at Clinton, he read the charge to his 
audience, and said that his self-respect alone prevented him 



THE GREA T DEBATES 189 

from calling it a falsehood. But at Beardstown, a few days 
later, his self-respect had broken down, and with wild and 
angry gestures he pronounced it "an infamous lie!" Three 
hours afterward Lincoln was on the same spot summing up the 
evidence for his charge in a passage which for cumulative 
force and acumen could not be surpassed, followed quickly by 
another pitched in that tone of half-sad soliloquy and appeal, 
so often heard during the debates : 

Think nothing of me : take no thought for the political fate 
of any man whomsoever, but come back to the truths that 
are in the Declaration of Independence. You may do any- 
thing with me you choose, if you will but heed those sacred 
principles. You may not only defeat me for the Senate, 
but you may take me and put me to death. While pretend- 
ing no indifference to earthly honors, I do claim to be act- 
uated in this contest by something higher than an anxiety 
for office. I charge you to drop every paltry and insig- 
nificant thought for any man's success. It is nothing; I 
am nothing ; Judge Douglas is nothing. But do not destroy 
that immortal emblem of humanity — the Declaration of 
American Independence. 

Ill 

It is not easy to be just to Senator Douglas during the 
contest of 1858.^ Not only in the methods he employed, but 
in his very bearing and in the spirit he displayed, he had every 
aspect of a model demagogue. One expects hard hitting and 
rough speech at such times, though Douglas was unnecessar- 
ily offensive ; but that is not so much the ground of complaint 
as the fact that he persistently evaded the real issue, and when 

1 Of course, in the bitterness of political acrimony, many things were 
said and writen of Senator Douglas which were unjust. Even his personal 
habits were exaggerated and he was pictured as a coarse, vulgar, and 
almost brutal man. — Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin, Vol. I, pp. 177-8 
(1907). Partisan eyes saw little that was admirable in him. — Remi- 
niscences, by Carl Schurz, Vol. II, p. 95 (1909). On the other side are 
the portrayals by such men as Koerner and Clark E. Carr, who knew 
him, and the picture is more engaging, because more true. — Stephen A. 
Douglas, by C. E. Carr, pp. 41-52 (1909). 



190 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

he could not evade it he deliberately beclouded it. We have 
to remember, however, that he entered the field in face of an 
alert and powerful foe, disappointed that there was to be a 
contest at all, with defection and betrayal in the rear, and that 
he was fighting for his political life. If this did not excuse 
some of the methods and tactics to which he resorted, it may 
mitigate a too severe judgment of the man. 

On his personal side, Senator Douglas was a man of many 
admirable and lovable traits, which won for him the loyalty 
of thousands who had no thought of favors past or to come. 
Of short and stocky figure, a little corpulent, though not too 
much so, he was agile, graceful, athletic, and a dynamo of 
vitality. His head was massive, crowned with rich brown 
hair, sprinkled with grey ; his forehead high, open, and finely 
shaped; his eyebrows thick and hea\y; his eyes large, deeply 
set, of dark blue, flashing fire when stirred ; his mouth cleanly 
cut and very expressive ; his chin square and full, with eddy- 
ing dimples — every line bespeaking energy, audacity, and 
power. Affable, gracious, and winning, he was a good mixer 
who never forgot a name, an incessant smoker, at times con- 
vivial but rarely to excess; equally at home in the Senate or 
on the stump ; a man who never turned his back to a foe or 
upon a friend. Of indomitable pluck, he was truly kind- 
hearted, and a man of great ability. If he had been one de- 
gree more refined he would perhaps have been many degrees 
less popular. 

In that peculiar style of oratory, which, in its intensity, 
resembles physical combat, Douglas had no equal.^ His pres- 
ence was dominating, his personality compact and impressive, 
his voice strong, but not well modulated. Calm in stating 
facts, he was passionate in attack, disdainful when forced to 
defend, and without scruple when pushed to the wall. In as- 
sertion bold, in denunciation bitter — yet repenting a poisoned 
shaft as soon as it left his bow — not caring to persuade so 
much as to force the assent of his hearers, he was the Danton, 
not the Mirabeau, of oratory. Fluent in speech, facile in 

1 Twenty Years of Congress, by J. G. Blaine, Vol. I, p. 144 (1884). 




STEniEN A. Douglas 

[By courtesy of tlic Illinois State Historical Socdety] 



THE GREAT DEBATES 191 

logic, he was skilled in all the tricks of rough and tumble de- 
bate, and in the art of manipulating audiences, though appar- 
ently devoid alike of humor and of pathos.^ He was not a 
student, aside from the political history of the nation, of which 
his knowledge was minute and critical. His English was bold, 
terse, and pointed, rarely adorned with simile, and never, it 
is said, with a line of poetry. His speeches, like those of Clay, 
do not read well — he lacked entirely the literary quality — but 
they were immensely effective at the time, delivered as they 
were with vehement gesture and great personal force. Such 
was Douglas at his best, but towards the end of the debates 
his voice became sinister and harsh, as befitted the ugly mood 
of a man worn down with hoarseness and rage. 

Lincoln belonged to another order of men. He lacked al- 
most every grace of presence and of elocution, but he pro- 
duced such effects as only a great orator may create. Ijogic- 
al thrusts deft and piercing, humorous retorts quaint and pat, 
witty illustrations apt and unforgetable, united in his speech 
with a moral earnestness, a candor, a sincerity, a calm force 
of reason, and a simple, direct, sky-clear style which left no 
shadow on his meaning. His very voice, so high and often 
rasping, with little feeling of harmony in it, and little variety 
of cadence; his enunciation, so careful, so deliberate, and at 
times so hesitating; his restrained and awkward manner, in 
which there was nothing of the daring reckless freedom of the 
popular agitator — all these added to the impression that he 



1 " He would enjoy and laugh at stories, but there is no record that 
he ever told one. He appreciated a pun, but he never made one. ' ' — 
Stephen A. Douglas, by C. E. Carr, p. 44. On the evening before he 
arrived in Chicago, on July 9th, the city council had passed a resolution 
denouncing the Dred Scott decision. This was what Douglas meant by 
appealing from the Supreme Court to " a town meeting,''" which re- 
minded him of an old friend who used to say that to get justice one 
should take a case to the Illinois Supreme Court, and from that court 
take an appeal to a justice of the peace. Lincoln's voice was heard 
from behind, sotto voce, calling, " Judge! Judge! " Douglas paused 
and turned around, and Lincoln said, " Judge, that was when you were 
on the niinois Supreme Bench! " So far from being angry, Douglaa 
repeated the joke of his " friend Lincoln " to the audience. 



192 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

was an honest man seeking to know and tell the truth. He 
was usually embarrassed at the beginning, so that the faces 
of his friends sometimes fell in dismay. He rarely raised his 
hands above his head in gesture, and he had almost none of 
the hypnotic magnetism which legend attributes to him. All 
that he tried to do in the way of style, beyond clearness and 
directness, was to know exactly what he meant to say, to say 
it, and have done with it. 

Most men receive from their audience in vapor what they 
return in flood, but it was not after that manner that Lincoln 
was eloquent. With a great throng before him, his thought 
often seemed to be moving in remote and lonely regions, as 
one who saw things afar off. His appeal was not so much to 
his audience as to the individual man of whom it was com- 
posed, and to what was highest and best in every one of them. 
He believed that the human soul, when separated from the 
tumults which commonly disturb it, cannot refuse to respond 
to the voice of righteousness and reason, and his faith acted 
like a spell upon those who heard him. Each man seemed to 
stand apart from the crowd, and in those great moments when 
the speaker stood as one transfigured and inspired men felt 
that their own souls spoke to them in the tones of the orator. 
Such eloquence, the greatest known among men, is possible 
only in times of crises, and Lincoln spoke with the ultimate 
grace of simplicity at an hour when the right word fell with 
the authority of an apparition. 

By this time the State was all aglow from Galena to Cairo — 
speechifying, denouncing, inveighing, disinterring dead 
speeches and by-gone slanders, making magniloquent prophe- 
cies, and getting up "glorious m.ass meetings." Lincoln jour- 
neyed from Beardstown to Havana, Bath, Lewistown, Canton, 
and Peoria, speaking at each place, and thence to Ottawa on 
the 21st of August, where the first joint debate was to take 
place. There he met Robert R. Hitt,^ who was to serve him 

1 It was my privilege to know Eobert E. Hitt in his later years, and 
a more delightful gentleman never lived. His personality, while not 
dazzling or masterful, was picturesque and winning, and his conversation 



THE GREAT DEBATES 193 

as reporter, and an audience estimated at about twelve thou- 
sand, which had gathered to witness the first encounter. The 
story of these debates has been often told, and need not be re- 
peated in detail, but a glimpse at this scene may make it more 
vivid. 

From dawn to mid-day, and even the day before, men, wo- 
men, and children had poured into town, in every sort of 
' ' rig. ' ' Through clouds of dust they came, under the blister- 
ing sun, as on pleasure bent, laughing and joking as they jour- 
neyed. Hay-carts, filled with merry young folk, lumbered 
along over ill-made roads, while straw riders chatted and sang. 
Market-wagons, loaded with provisions, towed buggies to ac- 
commodate the women and babies of the farm; and lads 
proudly rode their plow-horses to the fray, guiding them with 
bits of rope for reins. Here and there in the procession an 
old "prairie schooner" moved slowly forward, the faces of 
children peeping from its cavernous entrance, and a stovepipe 
protruding from its roof. Along all converging roads men 
and barefoot boys trudged through the blinding dust, calling 
themselves railsplitters or little giants. Ottawa overflowed 
onto the bluffs and out into the fields, where by noon-day good- 
natured crowds were cooking dinner, exchanging greetings, 
sharing food, and discussing the merits of the debaters. Ev- 
eryone seemed to be in a holiday mood, and while each side 



graphic and brilliant. His mind was a treasure-house of curiously inter- 
esting and generally unknown facts about historic men and movements, 
and he could easily have been the Plutarch of the statesmen of his day. 
Many of his friends — the writer among them — repeatedly urged Mr. 
Hitt to write his reminiscences, but he as often declined. In Winston 
Churchill 's story, The Crisis, Mr. Hitt appears as ' ' Hill ' ' — Churchill 
having learned the facts, in their vivid human color at least, from a 
conversation with Mr. Hitt. Like John Hay — whom he resembled in 
more ways than one — as a young man Hitt caught the glow of the moral 
idealism of Lincoln, and to that simple teaching he added the culture 
and polish of a man of the world. But, in all his career, as a diplomat, 
as the head of important commissions, as chairman of the Committee on 
Foreign Affairs, where he was so long a distinction and an ornament, it 
was a poish that revealed, as true polish always does reveal, the fine grain 
his manhood. 



194 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

was sure of victory very little ill-feeling was displayed. 
Peddlers were everywhere exhibiting their wares, and almost 
every farmer had something to "swap," which gave the scene 
the aspect of a county fair. 

Shortly after noon, special trains began to arrive, bands 
were playing, banners fluttering, and the streets were jammed. 
Rival processions moved to and fro — one, a mile long, marched 
down the Peru road to Buffalo Rock to meet Douglas, and two 
brass cannons roared salutes as he entered the town. Lincoln 
arrived, entered a gaily decorated carriage, and his friends 
formed a noisy escort to the home of the mayor, led by a band 
and carrying all sorts of banners, some in honor of "Abe the 
Giant Killer," and others announcing "Edgar County for the 
Tall Sucker!" By this time a free fight was going on near 
the platform on the square, where the debate was to be held, 
so eager was the crowd to be close to the speakers. Douglas, 
not without difficulty, forced his way through the throng and 
reached the platform, where he bowed gracefully to the cheer- 
ing multitude. Then came Lincoln, followed by Mayor Glover 
and Owen Lovejoy, and the sight of hira was a signal for deaf- 
ening applanse, at which Douglas scowled. Scarcely could 
two men more unlike, in physical and mental makeup, have 
been brought together. 

No formality of introduction was needed, and Douglas, who 
was to open the debate, plunged forthwith into a tirade upon 
the Republican party, which he said was Abolitionism in dis- 
guise, organized in Illinois as the result of a compact between 
Lincoln and Trumbull who wanted office. With great flourish 
he linked their names with those of " Father Giddings and 
Fred Douglass," laying special emphasis upon the last name. 
He then read a list of questions to his opponent based upon a 
series of resolutions which, he alleged, had been reported by 
Lincoln, as chairman of the committee, to a Republican State 
convention, held at Springfield in October, 1854. Those reso- 
lutions declared, among other things, for the admission of 
no more Slave States and the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law. 
Such radical demands, he argued, were of a piece with the 



THE GREAT DEBATES 195 

speech of Lincoln in accepting his nomination, which he said 
was a threat of war against the South. All of which proved 
that the Republican party was revolutionary and sectional, 
and as such dangerous, even going so far as to advocate the 
equality of negroes and whites. It was a bold and skilful 
speech, an attack not an argument, an appeal to prejudice 
not to reason. Never did Douglas give better proof of his 
right to the title of little giant than on that day. 

Lincoln was plainly vexed when he rose, but he soon re- 
covered himself and began his reply with the same dignity 
and courtesy that marked him to the end. If he had not been 
a most adroit debater he could not have escaped the first on- 
slaught, for he had to pick his way between two extremes; 
but he could not be provoked into a blunder. Taking up ' ' the 
little follies" of his antagonist, as he called them, he denied 
any compact with Trumbull, and merely remarked, as he truly 
could, that no Republican convention was held in Springfield, 
or anywhere else, in 1854, and that he was not present at the 
meeting referred to. On the contrary, he was in another 
county, attending court — thanks to the strategy of Herndon. 
Having disposed of these trifles, he proceeded to the real is- 
sues, refusing to be diverted from great principles to petty 
prejudices. By this time all trace of annoyance and embarrass- 
ment had vanished, and in dwelling upon the Dred Scott case 
he dealt a series of thrusts that made Douglas and his friends 
squirm. One Irishman, aweary of the prodding, cried out, 
' ' Give us something besides Drid Scott ! ' ' 

There was no escaping him ; what he wanted to make plain 
was that Douglas had some reason for standing by the Dred 
Scott infamy, other than loyalty to the courts, which he dared 
not admit. Douglas had not said that the decision was right 
in itself, but simply that it had been decided by the court 
and, as such, he must take it as a rule of political action. But 
he had defied other decisions of the same court, and had won 
his seat on the Illinois Supreme Bench, and his title of 
"Judge," by being appointed, with four others, to vote down a 
ruling of that tribunal. So there must be a reason, "a pur- 



196 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

pose, strong as death and eternity, for which he adheres to 
this decision, and for which he will adhere to all other deci- 
sions of the same court." Having driven this point home, he 
passed slowly into a peroration which evoked such a storm of 
applause that Douglas, in his half-hour reply, was powerless 
to stay it : 

Judge Douglas is going back to the era of our Revolution, 
and, to the extent of his ability, muzzling the cannon which 
thunders its annual joyous return. When he invites any 
people, willing to have slavery, to establish it, he is blow- 
ing out the moral lights around us. When he says he 
"cares not whether slavery is voted down or voted up" — 
that it is a sacred right of self-government — he is, in my 
judgment, penetrating the human soul, and eradicating 
the light of reason and the love of liberty in this American 
people. And now I will only say, that when by these 
means and appliances. Judge Douglas shall succeed in 
bringing public sentiment to an exact accord with his own 
views — when these vast assemblies shall echo back all these 
sentiments — when they shall come to repeat his views, and 
to say all that he says on these mighty questions — then it 
needs only the formality of a second Dred Scott decision, 
which he endorses in advance, to make slavery alike lawful 
in all the States, old as well as new. North as well as South. 

After this no one doubted that it was to be, on one side at 
least, the battle of a giant. Both men were able, astute, and 
masterful, both were seasoned politicians, both were hard hit- 
ters in debate, and both knew Illinois from Chicago to Cairo. 
Lincoln excelled Douglas in his devotion to an idea, its prob- 
able consequences, and all that it implied, and thus gained 
the advantage which the thorough-going logician must always 
gain over the hair-splitting opportunist. He was less of an 
egoist than Douglas, less ambitious, and therefore less selfish, 
for Douglas would never have yielded to Trumbull as Lincoln 
did. Yet Douglas was a great party leader — not incapable of 
sacrifices — inferior to Lincoln only on his moral side. Two 
days later Herndon wrote to Theodore Parker : 



THE GREAT DEBATES 197 

Springfield, 111., August 23, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir: — Some days since I received from you four 
sermons delivered before the "Progressive Friends." The 
first two are excellent, the third eloquent, and the fourth is 
the heart development of religion. You have almost, in 
this, excelled yourself, and I wish this resume was in the 
hands of every American citizen, so that all might see what 
the religion is. 

Now for Illinois politics. Mr. Lincoln spoke at Ottawa 
on Saturday. Mr. Douglas also spoke there. This was 
their first place of meeting. We have not heard from 
them, but we Republicans know how the debate ended, if 
Lincoln was well. Lincoln will deliver a speech there that 
will do himself credit. He is too much of a Kentucky gen- 
tleman to debate with Douglas; he will not condescend to 
lie. He will not bend to expediency ; he will not hug shams, 
and so he labors under a disadvantage in this State. Yet 
he will take hold of Douglas and prove the conspiracy to 
enslave America on him. He has got the documents and 
will shoot the charge home. 

Judge Trumbull made a very fine speech at Chicago, a 
week or so since, which you have doubtless seen; it was 
what we out West call a ' ' clincher. ' ' Politics is getting hot, 
angry, furious here ; we are determined to kill off Doiiglas, 
if we can by honest, fair, manly means. We will resort to 
no wrong, no baseness, no demogogism, no trickery or 
''truppery. " We have charged Douglas with a conspiracy 
to enslave America, and we think the proof incontestible. 
The whole Free, as w^ell as the Slave States look on this 
Illinois battle, we suppose, with a good deal of interest. 
How is it? This State is being fired up from Cairo to 
Chicago, and from Quincy to Paris, from center to circum- 
ference. Our Republican friends take high ground for 
vFreedom — as high as our people will bear just now. Wliat 
we may do in the future I cannot say. You know the un- 
der-currents as well as I do — better I dare say. 

Wliy is it that you Eastern people are for Douglas; I 
mean your leaders? If you have a friend, whom you wish 
to go to the White House, tell him to keep his fingers out 
of our fight — keep his wishes to himself, if he is for Doug- 
las. Greeley had better attend to New York ; he will have 
all he can attend to well at that. There is something in the 
wind, which is not today graspable. It will come some 



198 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

lime. I will tell you in due time — before 1860. I am out 
making speeches — send you a slip noticing one I made in 
Logan County a few days ago. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

What Lincoln thought of the debates was disclosed, inci- 
dentally, in a remark made later at Quincy, when he said: 
' ' I was aware when it was first agreed that Judge Douglas and 
I were to have these seven joint discussions, that they were 
the successive acts of a drama — perhaps I should say to be 
enacted not merely in the face of audiences like this, but in the 
face of a Nation, and to some extent by my relation to him and 
not from anything in myself, in the face of the world." So 
he had changed his style, largely eliminating his anecdotal 
vein, his mimicry, his fantastic humor — with which, had he 
used them, he could probably have routed Douglas off the 
stage. But he knew that his words must stand the test of 
cold type and be read by thoughtful men in far away places, 
when voice, manner, and gesture were withdrawn. If he 
could not entirely ignore the trivial and ephemeral, his speech- 
es, especially in the earlier debates, were singularly free from 
the slag of the hour. No doubt this was his chief aim at Free- 
port, when, with his famous questions, he made Douglas face 
some of the real issues. 

IV 

After speaking at Galesburg, Macomb, and other points, 
Lincoln started north to Freeport, where the next debate was 
to be held on August 27th. He seems to have been in one of 
his Hamlet moods all the way: indeed, he kept a copy of 
Shakespeare with him, and would often slip away from the 
throngs and walk alone to read and muse betimes. Friends 
boarded the train along the road, anxious to know what ques- 
tions he intended to ask Douglas; for they knew the art of 
Douglas in turning and twisting things to his own advantage. 
They also knew that ' ' the Little Dodger ' ' was nonplused and 
smarting under the charge that the radical resolutions upon 
which he had harped so effectively at Ottawa, were a forgery. 



THE GREAT DEBATES 199 

When Lincoln read his list of interrogatories, Judd, Medill, 
Ray, and Washburne, unanimously counseled him not to put 
the second question. " For," they argued, " he will perceive 
that an answer giving practical force and effect to the Dred 
Scott decision in the Territories inevitably loses him the battle, 
and he will reply by affirming the decision as an abstract prin- 
ciple, but denying its practical application. ' ' ^ 

"If he answers that way," said Lincoln, " he is a dead 
cock in the pit ; he can never be President. ' ' 

' ' But that, ' ' they insisted, ' ' is none of your business ; you 
are concerned only about the Senatorship. " 

" No, gentlemen," continued Lincoln, " not alone exactly. 
I am killing bigger game. The battle of 1860 is worth a hun- 
dred of this. ' ' So the question was put, and Douglas answered 
without hesitation, and even jauntily, as follows : 

Can the people of a United States Territory, in any lawful 
way, against the wish of any citizen of the United States, 
exclude slavery from its limits prior to the formation of a 
State constitution? 

It matters not what way the Supreme Court may here- 
after decide as to the abstract question whether slavery may 
or may not go into a Territory under the Constitution, the 
people have the lawful means to introduce or exclude it as 



1 The tradition of this conference has been pronounced a fiction by 
some, particularly by Clark E. Carr. — Stephen A. Douglas, pp. 176-184 
(1909). One must admit that the place of the conference is located 
variously, at Chicago, Mendota, Dixon, and Freeport; but that some sort 
of protest by the friends of Lincoln was made, seems clear. Scrippa, 
Holland, Lamon, Herndon, Arnold, Whitney, Medill, all, in fact, who had 
opportunity to know report such a meeting. Kobert E. Hitt — as " Hill " 
in The Crisis — and Horace White confirm it. That Lincoln did say ' ' I 
am killing larger game; the battle of 1860 is worth a hundred of this," 
is certainly true. As we shall see in the letters of Mr. Herndon, repro- 
duced in another chapter, he had said this from the beginning of the 
campaign. It is true that Douglas had answered the question, or at 
least stated his position, many times before, but never on so conspicuous 
an occasion, and in hearing of the whole nation. It is also true that 
some of the friends of Lincoln, Medill in particular, exaggerated the 
foresight of their leader, for it is hardly probable that Lincoln had any 
reference to his part in the battle of 1860. 



200 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist a day 
or an hour any^^here, unless it is supported by local police 
regulations. Those police regulations can only be estab- 
lished by the local legislature ; and if the people are opposed 
to slavery, they will elect representatives to that body who 
will by unfriendly legislation effectually prevent the intro- 
duction of it into their midst. If, on the contrary, they 
are for it, their legislation will favor its extension. Hence, 
no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be 
on that abstract question, still the right of the people to 
make a Slave Territory or a Free Territory is perfect and 
complete under the Nebraska Bill. I hope Mr. Lincoln 
deems my answer satisfactory on that point. 

So far from being cornered, Douglas only repeated what he 
had said at Chicago, Bloomington, and Springfield, and as 
early as 1856 ; and he might have added that at least one 
Southern Senator had said the same thing. At Jonesboro, as 
we shall see, Lincoln made a trenchant analysis of this answer, 
showing that Douglas, for all his adherence to the Dred Scott 
decision, as to a " thus saith the Lord," had devised a scheme 
whereby a local legislature could effectually defy it and make 
it void. Apart from this thrust, Lincoln seems not to have 
attached any remote importance to the ditch he was supposed 
to be digging for Douglas and the Northern Democrats, in so 
far as it might affect their relations with the South. Logically 
he had scored heavily, for surely one cannot thwart the high- 
est law lawfully ; but humanity is not often logical, least of all 
in a time of anger and crisis. What effect, if any, the ' ' Free- 
port Doctrine," as it is called, had on the subsequent career 
of Senator Douglas, no one can tell. That it was bruited all 
over the South, with hostile comment in the press, is true, 
though perhaps he counteracted it by his use of race prejudice 
in the debate. At any rate, after 1858 events moved with such 
rapidity and confusion that no one can trace the influence of 
this dogma. 

Of the questions propounded to Lincoln, only one gave liim 
any trouble ; and that was as to whether he would admit new 
Slave States. He replied, categorically, that he was not 



THE GREAT DEBATES 201 

pledged against admitting a new Slave State, but that lie should 
be exceedingly sorry ever to be put in a position of having to 
pass upon that question. Yet should the people of a Terri- 
tory, having a fair chance and a clear field, uninfluenced by 
the actual presence of the evil among them, do such an extra- 
ordinary thing as to adopt a slave constitution, he saw no 
alternative, if we own the country, but to admit them into the 
Union.^ This was indeed a most reluctant and hesitating an- 
swer, of which the wily Douglas was not slow to make note. 
For the rest, the Freeport debate was decidedly a Lincoln 
victory, though the bombastic ranting of Douglas made it 
seem otherwise to those to whom sound and fury signified 
much. On the day following the debate Theodore Parker wrote 
to his Western friend, blistering Douglas and Greeley, while 
predicting the \actory of Seward in 1860 : 

Boston, Mass., Aug. 28, 1858. 
Hon. W. H. Herndon. 

My Dear Sir: — Thanks for your kind letter and the be- 
nevolent things you say about my sermons. I look with 
great interest on the contest in your State, and read the 
speeches, the noble speeches of Mr. Lincoln with enthusiasm. 
One I saw in the Tribune of last week will injure Douglas 
very much. I never recommended the Republicans to adopt 
Douglas into their family. I said in a speech last January, 
"he is a mad dog; " just now he is barking at the wolf 
which has torn our sheep. But he himself is more danger- 
ous than the wolf. I think I should not let him into the 
fold. 



1 When Douglas "trotted Lincoln down into Egypt," he harped 
loudly upon this hesitating and evasive answer. ' ' Let me tell Mr. Lin- 
coln that his party in the northern part of the State hold to that Aboli- 
tion platform, and if they do not in the south and center, they present the 
extraordinary spectacle of a house divided against itself. ' ' Lamon, ap- 
parently on the authority of Judge Logan, says that in ithe struggle for 
the Senate in 1855, Lincoln pledged himself to Lovejoy and his faction 
in favor of no more Slave States. Douglas did not certainly know of 
such a pledge, but he suspected some sort of understanding; hence his 
persistence on this point. — Life of Lincoln, by W. FI. Lamou, pp 361- 
365 (1872). But Lincoln said he was not so pledged, and never had 
been, which makes the story of Lamon hardly credible. 



202 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Greeley is not fit for a leader. He is capricious, crochety, 
full of whims, and as wrong headed as a pig. How he talks 
on political economy, which he knows so little about ! How 
he took the side of Russia in the Crimean War! How he 
is now unwilling to object to the admission of a new Slave 
State, and what a mean defense of a mean speech ! He is 
honest, I think, but pitiably weak for a man in such a posi- 
tion. But he is quite humane, and surrounds himself with 
some of the best talent in the country. Do you see what the 
Richmond Whig says about Buchanan; that means that the 
Whig is fattening Edward Everett for the Presidency. 
Much good may it do him. I think the Republican party 
will nominate Seward for the Presidency, and elect him in 
1860; then the wedge is entered and will be driven home. 
Yours truly, Theodore Parker. 

No one, of all those who have written of these stormy days, has 
drawn such a political map of Illinois as is found in the reply 
of Herndon to the above letter. He describes the situation 
with singular fidelity, setting forth the difficulties, while watch- 
ing the words of Douglas with special reference to the " land 
lust of the Slave-Power." The letter is as valuable as it is 
vivid : 

Springfield, 111., August 31, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I have but a moment to spare, and I propose 
to devote it to you. I have been out on the stump, doing 
all I can for Republicanism. The politics now in our State 
are in the blue-hot condition; it has ceased to sparkle, but 
now it burns. Mr. Lincoln and Senator Douglas have had 
two " hitches," and it is the opinion of good sensible men 
that so far Lincoln has the decided advantage. 

In their late debate at Freeport, Douglas took the stand 
that at present we needed no more territory. You remem- 
ber I told you what Douglas told me, at Washington, that 
he would oppose the acquisition of Cuba, Central America, 
etc. He seems as good as his word. You know I told you 
what he said about the passage of Lecompton ; it turned 
out as he said, and doubtless you recollect other pledges he 
made me, and which I told you when in Boston. When I 
once told you by letter, that if I could once ' * look Douglas 
in the eye " I could tell what he intended, you supposed, 
doubtless, that I was quite arrogant, did you not? By the 



THE GREAT D EBATES 203 

by, do you remember what I told you about Friend Greeley, 
that is, that the Republican platform was too ' ' hif alutin, ' ' 
too abstract, in his opinion, and that it ought to be lowered 
— ' ' slid down ? ' ' Wliat is now unfortunately taking place ? 
I fear the Republican platform will get deeper in the 
' ' hell ' ' direction than the old Whig platform for measures. 
I hope you will continue to remember my conversation with 
you, not because I said it, but because what was said was 
uttered by greater men. I always tell you the truth — never 
dodge. 

If you remember, our State is a peculiar one politically : 
first, we have a north which is all intelligence, all for free- 
dom. Secondly, we have a South, people from the sand hills 
of the South, poor white folks. These are pro-slavery and 
ignorant "up to the hub. ' ' And thirdly, we have a belt 
of land, seventy-five miles in width, running from the east 
bank of the Mississippi to the Wabash — to Indiana ; and 
running north and south, from Bloomington to Alton. In 
or upon this strip or belt of land this " great battle " be- 
tween Lincoln and Douglas is to be fought and victory won. 
On this belt are three classes of individuals : first, Yankees ; 
secondly, intelligent Southerners ; and thirdly, poor whites. 
I now speak sectionally. Again : on this belt are four po- 
litical shades of party politics : first. Republicans ; second, 
Americans (old Whigs) ; third, Douglas Democrats; and 
fourth, National Democrats, Buchanan men. " Quite a 
muss." Two of these parties are acting as one; they are 
the Republicans and Fillmore men. They have a majority 
over both factions of the Democracy. The materials we 
have to struggle against are roving, Buffalo, Catholic Irish, 
backed and guided by the Democracy in the North. They 
will be run down here on pretense of getting a job, and so 
in the closely contested fight they will carry, we fear, the 
uncertain counties. These hell-doomed Irish are all for 
Douglas, and opposed, here, to the National Administration. 

I hope you can understand this complication. I give to 
you as my opinion, and the opinion of good, honest Repub- 
licans, that we will crush Douglas and pro-slaveryism. I 
give it now as my opinion that Lincoln will be our next 
United States Senator for Illinois. Your friend, 

W. H. IIerndon. 

If the State was " in a blue-hot condition " following the 
Freeport encounter, it became hotter still, if possible, as by 



204 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

slow stages, speaking incessantly at all sorts of meetings, Lin- 
coln and Douglas made their way down through the debatable 
belt to Egypt. Had the election been held in early July, 
Douglas would have carried the State by an overwhelming 
majority, but the tide was beginning to turn. As we shall 
see in the letters of Herndon, Republican hopes went skyward 
with great glee, and the Democrats became correspondingly 
bitter and glum. Greeley afterwards said truly that Lincoln 
was a great convincer of men, and in a difficult situation could 
do his cause more good and less harm than any man of his 
day. We have now to follow him through the wild and stormy 
scenes of the closing debates, in which, if he sometimes lost 
his temper, he never lost his wits. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Closing Debates 

With his powerful voice and facile energy, Douglas had en- 
tered the campaign under full steam, confident of success, and 
determined to win at any cost. His vanity was colossal, and 
he lost no opportunity to emphasize his superiority over his 
adversary, if not indeed over every other man in the nation. 
At Ottawa his strut was impressive, and to his followers over- 
whelming, as though Lincoln in his grasp was as a mouse be- 
ing shaken by a lion. All that he had to do, so he seems to 
have felt, was to fasten upon his opponent the stigma of Abo- 
litionism, and to belittle his personal history and political pre- 
tensions. But Lincoln, though vexed at first, was in nowise 
overawed by so much greatness, and soon let his opponent 
know that there was serious business on hand. 

As Douglas began to realize that the tide had turned toward 
Lincoln, he lost some of his confidence and all of his manners. 
Notliing could surpass the imperious and truculent offensive- 
ness of his behavior at Freeport. Deterred by no feeling of 
humility, no sense of fairness, no regard for the amenities of 
debate, he resorted to all the devices of a back-alley dema- 
gogue, denying facts, dodging arguments, playing upon preju- 
dice, and hurling epithets with a fluency that scarcely another 
man of his day could equal. A Republican was always a 
" black Republican," despite the protest of more than one 
audience that he change the color and " make it a little 
brown." Negroes, he said, were stumping for " their brother 
Abe," who, with Trumbull, was leading a " white, black and 
mixed drove of disappointed politicians ' ' armed with slander. 
While pretending to greatness, he did not hesitate to stoop to 
every cheap and trivial trick of gutter-rabble debate. 



206 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

I 

Still calling Lincoln and TnimbuU liars, and expatiating upon 
the mob spirit prevalent in the " black Republican " party, 
the Senator wended his way southward to find a more con- 
genial climate. All along he had been ea^er to " trot Lin- 
coln down into Egypt," threatening what would happen to 
him when he proclaimed his '' negro equality " in that sec- 
tion. What was really happening in the central and south- 
ern counties was portrayed, in part at least, in a characteristic- 
ally vivid letter from Herndon to Parker, describing the state 
of feeling and some of the causes of the anger of Douglas : 

Springfield, 111., Sept. 2, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I wrote you on yesterday a hasty letter, but 
I hope you can understand ; and I am now just on the eve 
of taking another tour, just having got back. My object in 
bothering you is this: I want to put the facts of this can- 
vass clearly before you, so that you may form a tolerably 
correct opinion. My letter on yesterday was specially de- 
voted to conditions of localities, and to the complication of 
parties. 

Now, in this I propose to speak especially of the state of 
feeling, first in the individual, and then in the whole masses. 
You are aware that I am a kind of " clever boy " among 
our people, and consequently all treat me respectfully — 
go all places and say all things. This gives me a view of 
the family circle. Here I hear them talk and sputter in 
their own way — look out of their own eyes. I state to you 
from this standpoint, that the spirit of Liberty, Freedom 
every way, is flooding out and clothing the outer clouds 
with frills of gold and fire. This is not only so in the Re- 
publican party, but it is so with respect to the Democratic. 
This disposition has reached to places very remote. In 
places that I came near being mobbed in 1855 and '56 men 
are this day aware of the truth, and are somewhat aroused 
on all questions of Freedom. This is so in religion. One 
good thing has resulted from Douglas's war on the clergy: 
it has opened the people 's eyes in that direction ; they have 
in fact commenced a series of inquiries. The world wags, 
I assure you. I have been in the south part of the State, 



THE CLOSING DEBATES 207 

" on the sly," organizing clubs, etc., and know what I am 
talking about. The huge mass begins, just begins, to move. 
It moves, it is true, heavily and gruntingly, yet it does 
move. This is the state of indi%aduals and the condition of 
the masses. Apply it, as you will do, and it follows that 
the people are ready to hear. They do hear Douglas and 
Lincoln. Five thousand go; ten, twenty, thirty thousand, 
it is said, go. 

In the debates between Douglas and Lincoln, Douglas 
is mad, is wild, and sometimes I should judge " half seas 
over. ' ' Douglas gets mad : he calls Lincoln a liar ; he calls 
Trumbull a liar. I heard Judge Trumbull here a few days 
since, and saw him demonstrate that Douglas struck out of 
the Toombs Bill that provision which required a submission 
of the Lecompton constitution to the people. I saw him 
demonstrate that Douglas put another provision in the bill 
absolutely prohibiting the people from voting on the con- 
stitution. These things I saw proved by the original papers, 
printed at Washington. Again : Douglas says that the Re- 
publicans of Illinois in 1854 passed some resolutions, as 
their platform. He makes this charge boldly at Ottawa, 
and now at Freeport they prove that the ones he read are 
base forgeries, never having been passed by the Republi- 
cans. He is compelled by public invitation in all parties to 
withdraw these forgery charges. He does so, and basely 
charges Major Harris as the perpetrator. 

Again : he asserts that in 1854-56 he was in favor of 
" squatter sovereignty," and said so on a thousand stumps 
— real squatter sovereignty, that is, that the people of Illi- 
nois might drive slavery out at any time. Now Lincoln is 
prepared by one of Douglas's printed speeches to prove that 
Douglas was the other way. In short, that he wilfully lied. 
So it goes. Wliile Douglas enunciates " lie, lie, black- 
guards," etc., they are demonstrating to vast crowds by 
the record that he is a good liar and a forger. The whole 
State is up in arms, politically so, I mean. Excitement rolls 
and chafes; it really foams. Believe me, Douglas is losing 
ground every day. As Douglas sinks, Lincoln rises. We 
are getting along grandly. Douglas is " sorter " cowed. 
Your friend, W. H. Herndon, 

By this time Mr. Parker had read reports of the speeches made 
in the debate at Ottawa, and was frankly disappointed that 
Lincoln did not face the questions as stated in the resolutions, 



208 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

whether forged or not. Even with Herndon's political map 
of Illinois before him, he seemed not to grasp the dilenmia in 
which Lincoln w^as placed by having to avoid the Abolition 
position on the one side, while not permitting Douglas to force 
him to disavow his repugnance to slavery on the other. Nor 
did he understand that Lincoln, so far from being an Aboli- 
tionist, had no inclination to interfere with slavery in the 
States where it existed, but was only seeking to check the 
spread of it. Mr. Parker wrote, once more paying his respects 
to Greeley: 

Boston, Mass., Sept. 9, 1858. 
Hon. Mr. Herndon. 

My Dear Sir : — Many thanks for your two very interest- 
ing and instructive letters. You make the case quite clear. 
I look with intense interest on the contest now raging in 
Illinois. There is but one great question before the people : 
Shall we admit Slavery as a principle and found a Democ- 
racy, or Freedom as a principle and found a Despotism? 
This question comes up in many forms, and men take sides on 
it. The great mass of people but poorly see the question; 
their leaders are often knaves and often fools. But 
Quidquid delirant reges, pJectuntur Achivi. 
I make no doubt Douglas will be beaten. I thought so 
in 1854, and looked on him then as a ruined man. What 
you told me last spring has all come to pass. I am glad 
Trumbull has demonstrated what you name. I thought it 
could be done. But in the Ottawa meeting, to judge from 
the Tribune report, I thought Douglas had the best of it. 
He questioned Mr. Lincoln on the great matters of Slavery, 
and put the most radical questions, which go to the heart 
of the question, before the people. Mr. Lincoln did not 
meet the issue. He made a technical evasion ; " he had 
nothing to do with the resolutions in question." Suppose 
he had not, admit they were forged. Still they were the 
vital questions pertinent to the issue, and Lincoln dodged 
them. That is not the way to fight the battle of freedom. 

You say right — that an attempt is making to lower the 
Republican platform. Depend upon it, this effort will ruin 
the party. It ruined the Whigs in 1840 to 1848. Daniel 
Webster stood on higher anti-slavery ground than Abra- 
ham Lincoln now. Greeley's conduct, I think, is base. I 
had never any confidence in him. He has no talent for a 



THE CLOSING D EBATES 209 

leader. If the Republicans sacrifice their principles for 
success, they will not be lifted up, but blown up. I trust 
Lincoln will conquer. It is an admirable education for the 
masses, this fight. Yours truly, 

Theodore Parker. 

Aside from the honest conservatism of Lincoln, there was still 
another reason, hints of which ]\Ir. Herndon gave in his reply, 
for his caution. The Dred Scott decision which permitted the 
holding of slaves in every Territory, and by inference in every 
State, had alarmed the North. That was the point where all 
the anti-slavery sentiment of the North came together, and 
Lincoln was wise in pressing it, which he did to the utter dis- 
comfiture of his opponent. Mr. Herndon wrote in reply : 

Springfield, 111., Sept. 11, 1858. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir: — I this moment landed at home, having been 
up in Christian County addressing her people on the terri- 
ble issues of the day. This fact will account, I hope, for 
delay. I wholly agree with you about Greeley, but dared 
not say so before you. He is, I think, honest, but a great 
special fool. He wants a guide to his brain ; he is, as you 
say, full of whims and crochets, writing up absurdities ; and 
on no one principle is he a greater ninny than on the sub- 
ject of " national political economy." Here he is behind 
the age — here he loses sight of principle, which blazes all 
around him. He struggles for liberty, but refuses, ab- 
surdly so, to follow it to its just practical results. He is a 
good man, but he does not see the force or logic of princi- 
ple — does not see far ahead. 

By the by, Greeley has done us infinite harm here in 
Illinois, and is still doing so ; he is " sorter, sorter ' ' — is this 
way and that — is no way, and tliis course injures us here 
very much. He and Douglas have an arrangement, which 
I will explain to you soon, as is charged and as I under- 
stand it. You remember what I told you about Greeley 
and Douglas ; that is, what they mutually told me when on 
my trip East. "We are getting very warm here — boiling, 
and the Republican cause is gaining every day. I send 
you a " leaf " of Lincoln's speech made in this city some 
time since. This will explain our difficulties. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 



210 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Instead of being weak in the knees, as Douglas had predicted 
he would be, when they arrived in Egypt, Lincoln seemed to 
be very much at home ; for he had grown up in that region, and 
knew the people better than Douglas did. Not only so ; owing 
to the activity of United States Marshal Dougherty, a nominee 
on the Buchanan ticket, the vicinity of Jonesboro, where the 
third debate was to be held, was even more hostile to Douglas 
than to Lincoln. Evidently Egypt had been smitten with a 
plagvie, for the meeting at Jonesboro on September 15th was 
as poorly attended as it was chary of applause; and both 
speakers had to make bricks without straw. Douglas opened 
the debate by a wild and rabid appeal to partisan passion, re- 
iterating all his stock arguments, renewing his charge of a cor- 
rupt bargain between Lincoln and Trumbull — quoting an al- 
leged statement of Matheny in proof — and accusing his op- 
ponent of changing the color of his speeches, which, he said, 
were jet-black in the north, a decent mulatto in the center, and 
almost white in the southern part of the State. Lincoln brushed 
these lesser matters aside briefly, and attacked what had come 
to be known as " the Freeport doctrine " of Douglas, which 
affirmed that, despite the decision of the Supreme Court, 
slavery could not exist without ' ' friendly local legislation and 
appropriate police regulations." He did, however, beg leave 
to doubt the authenticity of the Matheny statement, in view 
of the Ottawa episode. After analyzing the answer made 
by Douglas at Freeport, he added another question to his 
list: 

I hold that the proposition that slavery cannot enter a 
new Territory without police regulations is historically 
false, . . . The history of this country shows that the insti- 
tution of slavery was originally planted upon this continent 
without these ^' police regulations " which Judge Douglas 
now thinks necessary for the actual establishment of it. Not 
only so, but there is another fact — how came the Dred 
Scott decision to be made? It was made upon the case of 
a negro being taken and actually held in slavery in Minne- 
sota Territory, claiming his freedom because the act of Con- 
gress prohibited his being so held there. Will the Judge 



THE CLOS ING DEBATES 211 

pretend that Dred Scott was not held there without police 
regulations? . . . This shows that there is vigor enough in 
slavery to plant itself in a new country even against un- 
friendly legislation. It takes not only law but the enforce- 
ment of law to keep it out. ... If you were elected mem- 
bers of the Legislature, what would be the first thing you 
would have to do before entering upon your duties? Swear 
to support the Constitution of the United States. Suppose 
you believe, as Judge Douglas does, that the Constitution 
of the United States guarantees to your neighbor the right 
to hold slaves in that Territorj" — that they are his property 
— how can you clear your oaths unless you give him such 
legislation as is necessary to enable him to enjoy that prop- 
erty? . . . And what I say here will hold with still more 
force against the Judge's doctrine of '' unfriendly legisla- 
tion." How could you, having sworn to support the Con- 
stitution, and believing it guaranteed the right to hold 
slaves in the Territories, assist in legislation intended to de- 
feat that right ? . . . Not only so, but if you were to do so, how 
long would it take the courts to hold your votes unconstitu- 
tional and void ? Not a moment. . . . Here I propose to give 
the Judge my fifth interrogatory, which he may take and 
answer at his leisure : 

If the slaveholding citizens of a United States Terri- 
tory should need and demand Congressional legislation for 
the protection of their slave property in such Territory, 
would you, as a member of Congress, vote for or against 
such legislation? 

" Will you repeat that? " said Douglas. " I want to answer 
that question." 

Lincoln repeated it, but Douglas, instead of answering it, 
dodged it by taking refuge in his favorite dogma to which 
Lincoln was wont to refer satirically, mimicking the manner 
of Douglas, as " the gur-reat pur-rinciple of popular sov- 
ereignty." At the close of his speech Lincoln was really an- 
gry, when, by a strange lapse, he descended to make note of a 
playful remark uttered by Douglas at Joliet, to the effect that 
when at Ottawa he had threatened to " trot Lincoln down 
into Egypt," the latter became so weak that he had to be car- 
ried from the platform — referring to the incident at Ottawa 
when two young farmers took Lincoln upon their shoulders 



212 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

and carried him in triumph from the scene, while five thousand 
people joined in the ovation. After dwelling upon the remark 
of Douglas, he finally said: " I don't want to quarrel with 
him — to call him a liar — but when I come square up to him 
I don't know what else to call him, if I must tell the truth 
out." 

On their way to the next debate, both men paused to visit 
the State Fair, then in full blast at Centralia, and curious 
crowds followed the rivals through the grounds, deeming them 
more attractive than the exliibits. Fifteen thousand people 
assembled at Charleston to hear the discussion on September 
18th. Again there were long processions with bands and ban- 
ners, the women taking part in behalf of Lincoln. Thirty-two 
girls, representing the thirty-two States, rode in a long, decor- 
ated wagon on which was inscribed : 

The girls link on to Lincoln, 
As their mothers linked to Clay ! 

So far Lincoln had been content to deny the charge that he 
was advocating the political and social equality of negroes 
and whites, and while there may have been some variation of 
emphasis in different parts of the State his position was con- 
sistent and clear. He held that the authors of the Declaration 
of Independence intended to include all men as equal, not in 
all respects — in color, size, moral development, or social capa- 
city — but only equal in certain inalienable rights. "While he 
did not afiirm that the negro was his equal in moral or intel- 
lectual endowment, he insisted that in the right to eat the 
bread which his own hands had earned, without the leave of 
anybody else, the black man was his equal, the equal of Sen- 
ator Douglas, and the equal of any living man. Nor could he 
be held to account for any other position, except by some 
" specious and fantastic arrangement of words by which a 
man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chestnut horse." But 
in the hotel at Charleston some one had asked him about this 
matter, and in opening the debate he stated his position in a 
manner which grated upon the feelings of some anti-slavery 




I M 












THE CLOSING DEBATES 213 

men, as betraying too much of the spirit of caste and too much 
prejudice against color.^ 

I will say that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of 
bringing about in any way the social and political equality 
of the white and black races ; that I am not in favor of mak- 
ing voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to 
hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. . . . There 
is a physical difference between the white and black races 
which I believe will forever forbid the two races living to- 
gether on terms of social and political equality. And inas- 
much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together 
there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I 
as much as any other man am in favor of having the supe- 
rior position assigned to the white race. . . . I do not per- 
ceive that because the white man is to have the superior 
position the negro must be denied everything. I do not 
understand that because I do not want a negro woman for 
a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My under- 
standing is that I can just let her alone. ... I have never 
had the least apprehension that I or my friends would 
marry negroes if there was no law to keep them from it; 
but as Judge Douglas and his friends seem to be in great 
apprehension that they might, if there were no law to keep 
them from it, I give him the most solemn pledge that I will 
to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids 
the marrying of white people with negroes. 

And in his rejoinder he added : I am not in favor of 
negro citizenship. My opinion is that the different States 
have the power to make a negro a citizen under the Consti- 
tution if they choose. The Dred Scott decision decides that 
they have not the power. If the State of Illinois had that 
power I should be opposed to the exercise of it. That is all 
I have to say about it. 

At the beginning of the contest Senator Trumbull had charg- 
ed that Douglas had besmirched himself in connection with 
the Toombs Bill, helping to strike from it the provision per- 
mitting the people of Kansas to submit the constitution to a 
vote. Douglas denied that the bill contained any such pro- 
vision, and branded Trumbull as a liar. Lincoln, more ag- 

'^ Bise and Fall of the Slave Power, by Henry Wilson, Vol. II, p. 
576 (1872). 



214 LINCOLN AND HERNDQN 

gressive than he had been before, now took it up and resented 
such gross attacks upon Senator Trumbull. He reviewed the 
devious course of the Toombs infamy and proved, by unques- 
tionable evidence, that it did embody such a provision, and 
thus, if not convicting Douglas of the original offence, proved 
that he had stated an untruth in the matter. The charge of 
conspiracy, hitherto vague and shadowy, became definite and 
effective, and Lincoln suggested to Douglas that " it will not 
avail him at all that he swells himself up, takes on dignity, and 
calls people liars." Douglas was furious, as he had reason to 
be under such a charge, which meant that while proclaiming 
" popular sovereignty " he was plotting to overthrow it. 

Both men were angry, and blows fell thick and fast. In re- 
taliating Douglas revived the old yarn that Lincoln, while in 
Congress, had voted against furnishing supplies to the army 
during the Mexican "War. Whereupon, Lincoln seized 0. B. 
Ficklin, a Democrat who had been in Congress with him in the 
forties, and who personally knew that Douglas " lied," lead- 
ing the man forward as a witness with such muscular force 
that he could not resist. Ficklin afterward said that Lincoln 
shook all the Democracy out of him that day. Though neither 
charge has any value for us, Lincoln believed that Douglas did 
help to concoct the Toombs Bill, and so thorough was his cir- 
cumstantial demonstration that he said that his opponent 
might as well call Euclid a liar. Both friend and foe were 
glad when time was called upon Lincoln, for all felt that Doug- 
las had had enough, and that it was time to let up on him.^ 

1 According to I. N. Arnold, Douglas could not keep hia seat, but 
walked rapidly up and down the platform, watch in hand, obviously 
impatient for the call of ' ' time. ' ' The instant the second hand reached 
the point, he called out: " Sit down, Lincoln, sit down. Your time is 
up." Turning to Douglas, Lincoln said: " I will. I will quit. My 
time is up." — Life of Lincoln, p. 148 (1884). But Horace White, who 
was present, remembers no such incident. And, though Douglas was 
doubtless glad when " time " was called, he was too wily a man to 
display such restiveness, even if he felt it. But it is true that on that 
day he was taught a lesson, as no doubt Lincoln regretted his exhibition 
of ire. 



THE CLOSING DEBATES 215 



11 

At last Mr. Herndon " let the cat out of the hag " and told 
the secret, of which he had hinted in his former letter, which 
explained the course of Lincoln in the contest. Incidentally, 
in replying to what Mr. Parker had said ahout Seward for the 
Presidency, he shows that so far the friends of Lincoln had 
not thought of their leader for that high oifice. He also makes 
clear, what had been a puzzle to Parker, what was meant by 
' ' looking Douglas in the eye, ' ' and the efficiency of that meth- 
od of worming secrets out of an opponent. Exactly how far 
this scheme went is uncertain, but Herndon believed, and so 
did Lincoln, that it extended to a definite bargain : 

Springfield, 111., Sept. 20, 1858. 
Mr. Parker. 

Dear Sir: — I came home on this day and found yours 
of the 9th inst., at my residence. I am much obliged to 
you. I was afraid in my hurry that I did not make plain 
what I wanted to say. There is one thing I forgot to an- 
swer in your former letter, and that was this: " Seward 
will be our next candidate for the Presidency." This was 
your opinion, but let me say, I doubt it. There is something 
in the wind, the full idea of which I do not gather. My 
opinion is that to get the Know-Nothings, North as well as 
South, our Republican platform will be lowered so low that 
Seward will not stand on it, or if he would he is not the 
man to suck to himself all the floating materials on the great 
sea of politics. Look out for cowardly expediency ! "Watch ! 
I admit with you that if Seward is the candidate and is 
elected that the iron wedge is then ready, and will be driven, 
so that as the things split the fibers along the lines of the 
crack will sing from the intensity of the blow. Friend, 
form no loved theory just now: men are cruel, and poli- 
ticians are cowards, crucifying God in their base coward- 
ice, as they go onward. 

I have often said to you that Greeley has done us infinite 
harm in this State, and now let me explain. First, Greeley, 
Seward, Weed, and Douglas, by accident or otherwise, met 
in Chicago in the month of October, 1857, and soon after- 
ward it was announced to me officially, but privately, that 
Senator Douglas was a Republican. I did not see these 



216 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

men in Chicago, though I believe they were so informed. 
This is the substance of the Chicago contract. Douglas said 
to Greeley, etc., " Yoii support me for the Senate, mid I 
ivill support Seward for the Presidency, and take my chance 
for the office in time." "Agreed," said the crowd. The 
New Yorkers went eastward, and Douglas stayed at home, 
insinuatingr that he was a Republican, etc. It somehow 
turned up that Judge Trumbull was told of this ; but he 
rebelled, his friend Lincoln not having been consulted in 
the trade; and so the matter fell to the ground. This ac- 
counts for Douglas's savage attacks against Lecompton. 
Greeley found out that he could not rule us — could not 
turn us over to Douglas ; and so the bargain was null and 
void; and so this accounts for Douglas's later pro-slavery 
tendencies. So wags this great political world. This, too, 
accounts for Greeley's support of Douglas, Haskin, etc., at 
first, and now his cold and cowardly advocacy of Lincoln. 
Here then is the whole matter as I can get it. There is yet, 
do not forget, an agreement to lower the Republican flag, so 
that all gray-headed, cowardly, sniveling, conservatives, 
North as well as South, may gather upon a degraded plank. 
I say ; look out ! 

I hold in mv hand a letter from a certain Senator of the 
United States — good heavens, would you believe it ! — ac- 
knowledging something, substantially, which amounts to a 
partial confession of the Douglas-Lincoln phase of things. 
I cannot state all — it's private. I told you once, if not 
oftener, that if I could look Douglas in the eye I could tell 
what was going on. Doubtless you thought I was foolish. 
I did so and told you all I dared, when in Boston. There 
is a peculiar tie which binds men together, who have drank 
" bouts " together. So with Douglas and my humble self. 
I am hard to fool, friend, by man. I can read him about 
as well as he knows himself. Excuse this arrogance. I 
brought this news to our town and it astonished Lincoln 
and our boys, and thunderstruck the Chicago Tribune, etc. 
One of my reasons for being in Boston may now be ac- 
counted for. Do you understand ? Will finish in next. 
Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Whether or not the agreement here referred to took the 
shape of an actual bargain, this letter illumines the whole 
campaign, so far as Lincoln, Trumbull, and the Illinois Re- 
publicans were concerned, and helps us to understand it as 



THE CLOSING DEBATES 217 

never before. Be it noted that the date of this meeting in 
Chicago, October, 1857, was two montlis before the revolt of 
Douglas against the Lecompton fraud, and, as Herndon, Lin- 
coln, and Koerner believed, inspired that revolt. This ex- 
plains, among many other things, the dickerings of Douglas 
for Republican support, his sending documents to Herndon 
and others. It makes clear the action of the Republican State 
convention in giving Lincoln a direct, specific, and unqualified 
nomination, and gives the key to his speech of acceptance. 
It explains the apathy of Greeley, his "mean speech," to 
which Mr. Parker referred, his lack of enthusiasm for Lincoln, 
and his pleas to Herndon for Harris. It accounts for the 
prophecy of Douglas in his Chicago speech, that the Repub- 
licans would come over to his side, and his anger and bitter 
denunciation when they refused to come; his contemptuous 
belittlement of Lincoln and his friends, his charge of a cor- 
rupt bargain between Lincoln and Trumbull, his effort to 
brand them as Abolitionists, his later pro-slavery tendencies — 
and, indeed, his devious movements during the whole cam- 
paign. It is a most illuminating and valuable letter, and so 
Mr. Parker regarded it. 

Boston, Mass., Sept. 23, 1858. 
Hon. Mr. Herndon. 

My Dear Sir : — Your last letter, just come to hand, is 
quite important. I shall keep it confidential, but consider 
the intelligence, and "govern myself accordingly." That 
"accidental" meeting in Chicago is quite remarkable, and 
explains many things which seemed queer before. Last 
spring you told me much which was new, and foretold what 
has since happened. I did not understand till now, after 
reading your last letter, how you could tell what Douglas 
was after by looking in his eye ; now it is clear enough. 
There is a freemasonry in drinking. I long since lost all 
confidence in Greeley, both as a representative of a moral 
principle, and as the ad\aser of expedient measures. His 
course in regard to Douglas last winter was inexplicable 
until now. 

We must not lower the Republican platform. Let the 
Know-Nothings go to their own place; we must adhere to 
the principle of Right ! I go for Seward as the ablest and 



218 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

best representative of the Democratic idea, that could now 
get the nomination. My next choice would be Chase. I 
put Seward first, because oldest and longest in the field — 
perhaps, also, the abler. But if Douglas is defeated, if 
Trumbull is re-elected in 1860, I think he would be quite 
as likely to get the nomination. 

Massachusetts is likely to send a stronger anti-slavery 
delegation to Congress than ever before. Some of the 
Know-Nothings will be discharged (others ought to be). 
C. F. Adams, J. B. Alley, T. D. Eliot, and George Boutwell, 
are likely to be members of the next House of Representa- 
tives. Governor Banks would, no doubt, lower the Repub- 
lican platform, if that operation would help him up. But 
Massachusetts will oppose any such act, and so will the peo- 
ple of the North. If we put up a spoony we shall lose the 
battle, lose honor, and be demoralized. Edward Everett 
is beating every New England bush for votes to elect him ! 
He may beat till the cows come home, and get little for 
his labor. 

What you write about, the letter from the Eastern Sen- 
ator, chagrins me a good deal. But I am sure of this: if 
the attempt is made by the Republican leaders to lower the 
platform, then they are beaten in 1860, and are ruined as 
completely as I think Douglas now is. Greeley says he 
would admit new Slave States. I despise such miserable 
cowardice, all the more in such a man. 

Truly yours, Theodore Parker. 

As yet the name of Lincoln does not figure among Presi- 
dential possibilities with Mr. Parker, though Trumbull's does; 
nor does Herndon mention it. Writing after the fact in later 
years, Mr. Herndon and others intimate that they foresaw 
Lincoln for President and worked to that end, but these let- 
ters tell another story ; though, as has been said, Herndon was 
not surprised when his partner was mentioned for supreme 
leadership. In replying to Mr. Parker, he flays Greeley with- 
out mercy, giving us at the same time a glimpse of the influ- 
ence of the Tribune and its opportunity to damage Lincoln: 

Springfield, 111., Sept. 25, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir: — In my last letter of the 20th inst, I was 
detailing, or trying to do so, how Greeley hurt us in lUi- 



THE CLOSING DEBA TES 219 

nois. You know what I said. "Well, secondly, we were 
like innocent fools waiting out here to hear Greeley open in 
his great Tribune : we expected that he would open the ball, 
but no signal boom came, and we grew restively cold, and 
our party slumbered as with a chill — a bivouac of death 
upon an iceberg, until we waked and shook off the frost and 
gathered up our mantles, staffs, and flags ; and now, without 
Greeley, and in spite of Greeley, we are daily conquering a 
victory by our own energy and power, and if you will, elo- 
quence. Greeley's treachery or indifference came near 
killing us — defeating us in Illinois. So much for the 
treacherous or indifferent conduct of a great leader, and 
supposed friend. It all now seems strange and mysterious ; 
but the facts are before us, and from which there is no 
escape. Greeley was daily playing into the hands of the 
pro-slavery camp. Had Douglas been elected — had we not 
organized the Republican forces in Illinois this year, we 
should have been disorganized in 1860, and thrown into the 
great traitor's arms — Douglas's arms; and he would have 
sold us to the Charleston convention in 1860; or if he could 
not we would have been powerless because disorganized. 
The whole people of the United States may thank us in Illi- 
nois for our instincts. This will appear in due time ; and 
your Yankee traders will be ashamed of themselves. I 
mean no disrespect to you. You are true. 

Again : you perceive that Greeley is already loivering 
the Repuhlican flag; we are not free from his influence yet. 
When Greeley made that mean and miserable speech of 
which you speak, it came out to Illinois, and we had to fol- 
low suit — were compelled to follow him. Wliy, the pro- 
slavery dogs would say — did say — that we Republicans 
were more fanatical, more abolition, than Greeley ; and thus 
you see the downward tendencies of things, and now you 
have the cause of Lincoln's backdown, and Greeley is the 
author, the cause of the downward slide. That speech of 
Greeley's and his cowardly editorials will reach throughout 
the whole North, and East, and Northwest. Mark it. This 
is a great wide treachery, but it is done and it cannot be 
helped. I wrote an article for Greeley's paper, notifying 
the world what was coming, but he refused to publish it. 
So I did to one of your Boston papers, and it was there re- 
fused, and so I came to the conclusion that this treachery 
was firmly fixed, wide-spread, and universal ; and so I quit 
writing except in Illinois. Here then is the cause of our 



220 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

wrongs, and Greelev and others are the authors, in my 
opinion. I agree with you that Greeley's conduct is most 
base, foul and damnable. What can we do? That is the 
question. Anything which you may suggest to me I will 
try to profit by. What shall be done ? How shall we act ? 
That is the question. 

Wlien you come fully to understand our position — Lin- 
coln 's position — and remember Greeley's whole conduct, 
speech and editorials, and remember the Tribune's influ- 
ence, its wide-spread and almost universal circulation, you 
will look over our heads and somewhat scorn the real trai- 
tor. I hope you now understand our condition, feelings, 
position, etc. We are gaining every day in Illinois. All 
looks bright. Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Others have described the scenes of the great debates, but 
no one has told of the little meetings at cross-road school- 
houses, where "the big bugs" did not go, as Mr. Herndon 
does in his next letter. Those who have had a part in the 
conduct of such a campaign know that such places, far off 
the highways of the world, are hardly less important, in a 
close contest, than the larger centers. Nor has any one ever 
described the seething, tumbling, boiling excitement of that 
autumn — no one else could describe it — as M.v. Herndon has 
done. Hear him : 

Springfield, 111., October 3, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I arrived home this minute off a political 
"tramp," and find yours of the 22d ult. I am happy to 
give you new items or old ones, if they will only give you 
proofs of our instincts. What I state to you, you may 
"swear by," for I only state what I knoiv to be true; and 
what I have hitherto stated, I know as well as that you are 
born. I know what I am talking and to whom, and so keep 
within bounds. 

I have lately been in and through Sangamon, Logan, 
Menard, Christian, Macoupin, and ]\Iacon counties — an area 
as large as the State of Massachusetts, and all things are 
afire — look right and feel strong and vital. Peter, the her- 
mit, is abroad, shaking our State. I am of your opinion 
that we have Senator Douglas "on the hip," and if we are 
not fooled he is "a dead cock in the pit." Here is one of 



THE CLOSING DEB ATES 221 

the best signs that I have felt yet : namely, the honest coun- 
trymen are, as we say here, "diimfounded, " — they do not 
know what to do about Douglas, his opinions, his veracity, 
his whole being, and throughout all its phases. They say 
nothing — keep still, for the Democracy is a kind of political 
popery, hunting out heresy and burning the heretic. I pre- 
dict that the Democracy will be badly fooled in their men, 
their numbers, and their turn-out. The farmers keep 
"shy:" the}^ do not want to be hunted up and damned, and 
so they simply say they are Democratic. I know, however, 
they are not, for I am all the time at the school-houses and 
village churches where good can be done and where the 
"big bugs" do not go. There are no great crowds at these 
cross-road places, yet they are really the places where good 
can be done. Those men who will go twenty miles through 
heat and dust to hear speeches are Democratic or Repub- 
lican ; but those who will not go twenty rods to hear speech- 
es are neither one w^ay nor the other ; but if you go to them, 
and erect a ' ' stump, ' ' or goods-box right at their door, then 
you get them to hear, and convert many. This is my expe- 
rience. I think it is the experience of others. 

Our people, the Republicans, old-line Whigs, and Fill- 
more men, are united closely, and are wise and wide-awake, 
doing man and God good service. This class of men, Re- 
publicans in all except name, is rapidly increasing, develop- 
ing into zealous, fiery, logical Republicans. This is so 
north and south, east and west, through the whole of the 
State. Our general ticket will be elected by thirty or forty 
thousand. The Buchanan men — party — are rapidly in- 
creasing. I love to see this, if I could only throw out of 
view the motive that actuates them — office. They are run- 
ning candidates in every Congressional district — in every 
State Senatorial district, and in every place where any body 
is a candidate for anything: they thus divide and split 
"wide open" the despotism that is threatening to grind us 
to powder. 

The Douglas party, on the other hand, are daily de- 
creasing, caving in, and giving up the ghost. I call this 
faction led on by Douglas, a mob ; it is composed mostly of 
Irish — whiskey settlers — the ignorant and debased of the 
whole world. The party is sinking — bound to sink and go 
under, and thank the people for it; thank God for it. I 
did Lincoln and Greeley a little wrong, probably, by the 



222 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

generality of my expressions — I say Lincoln's apparent 
"backdown," and Greeley's accidental advocacy of the pro- 
slavery side. Your friend, W. H, Herndon. 

Again Herndon turns upon Greeley; again he recurs to the 
letter from the United States Senator — Henry Wilson, we may 
guess — which, from his account of it, must have let light clear 
through the bargain between Greeley and Douglas, and the 
plot to lower the party ideal. And once again he refers to 
the matter of Presidential possibilities without any intimation 
as to Lincoln. The letter tingles with enthusiasm, indignation, 
and hope: 

Springfield, 111., October 4, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir: — In my hurry, whilst writing my last letter, 
I failed to meet, by answer, the whole of your letter. 1st, 
I wrote to you about a certain United States Senator, and 
you say that hint, that man chagrins you. I am sorry for 
this, but I cannot help it. However, I promise you that ere 
long you shall have the man 's name, if it is not too great a 
breach of confidence. I will think about it, ask my friends 
what to do. I state nothing but facts that I know. 

Secondly, you say you are, 1st, for Seward; 2nd, for 
Chase, and 3rd, for Senator Trumbull, if, etc. ; and in an- 
swer to this, I say "w^e of the West have no choice — we do 
not care who it is, so that he is a good Republican, one 
Avhose Republicanism is bottomed and buttressed on ideas — 
on the great underlying principles of justice, right, and the 
inalienable liberties of man : we do not want any Republican 
who is a Republican from simple policy, working upward 
through ambition. ' ' This is our speech to you — to all the 
world, East as well as West, North as well as South; and 
he who expects to get our votes must platform himself upon 
the Declaration of Independence, Justice, and the inalien- 
able rights and duties of man, guided and governed by the 
spirit of '76. If he do not stand here at least in feeling, 
he need not look westward, unless the East and middle 
Union tie our hands, and stop the beating of our hearts. We 
intend to climb as high as we can along the lines of absolute 
justice. This is our feeling now. What it may be in 1860 
I cannot tell, but only hope. 

Greeley is acting a great dog, is he not? Just look at 
the power of his great paper, with its world-wide circula- 



THE CLOSING DEBATES 223 

tion, and does he state who he is for, what he wants, what 
Illinois is doing, what freedom is struggling for, and how, 
with intensity, etc.? Nothing of the kind. He does not 
seem to know there is such a man as Lincoln, such a strug- 
gle as 1858-9, and such a State as Illinois. Does he keep 
his own people "posted?" Wlio would know by Greeley's 
paper that a great race for weal or woe was being fought 
all over the wide prairies of Illinois? Who would? It is 
strange indeed! 

We are gaining in numbers, strength, power, and en- 
thusiasm, every hour, day and week. Douglas is losing just 
in the same proportion, ratio or what not. I saw Mr. Rich- 
ard Yates, a former Congressman from this district, a day 
or so ago, and he says that Douglas looks gloomy, mournful, 
in despair — Yates having ridden with Douglas in the cars 
from Danville to the center of the State ; and I state to you 
the same thing, and in addition thereto I say Douglas is 
bloated as I ever saw him; he drinks very hard indeed; 
his look is awful to me, when I compare him as he now 
looks with what lie was in February, 1858. Wliat you can- 
not understand or read herein, guess at. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon, 

Herndon was not the man to write in this manner about 
Greeley to another and neglect to say the same thing to 
Greeley himself. Evidently he had been giving the editor of 
the New York Tribune a piece of his mind for his indifference 
to Lincoln and the Illinois contest. Not otherwise can we ex- 
plain the following letter in which, by implication at least, 
all that Herndon had heard and charged against Greeley was 
strikingly confirmed : 

New York, N. Y., October 6, 1858. 
W. H. Herndon, Esq. 

My Dear Sir : — It seems to me that my name ought not 
to be used to distract and disorganize the Republicans of 
your State. My personal conviction is that Col. Harris and 
Mr. Morris are two as clear-seeing, reliable, conscientious 
men on the slavery question as need be sent to Congress, 
and that it is a public misfortune that they are not recog- 
nized and supported as such. I do not wish to deny you to 
qualify this belief. The case is different with regard to 
Senator Douglas, who, in his present position I could not, 



224 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

of course, support, but he need not have been in this posi- 
tion had the Republicans of Illinois been as wise and far- 
seeing as they are earnest and true. I shaU not disguise 
my regret that the Republicans of your and the Quincy 
district did not see fit to support Messrs. Morris and Harris. 
I think they might have done so without a sacrifice either of 
principle or policy ; but, seeing that things are as they are, 
I would not wish to be quoted as authority for making 
trouble and division among our friends. 

Yours, Horace Greeley. 

Ill 

Such a campaign was enough to tire a man of iron, and 
even Douglas, famed for his endurance, was beginning to 
fag. Though he made much the same speech everywhere, as 
Lincoln reminded him, to repeat which required no great in- 
tellectual exertion, yet it was no holiday to travel constantly, 
even in a private car, and speak almost every day for three 
months. No doubt, an excessive conviviality, to which he was 
tempted, added to his nervous irritability, noted by so many 
observers; and a turn of sentiment had made the outcome of 
the contest uncertain. Then, too, the campaign was draining 
not only his strength but his purse, forcing him to spend what 
was left from the sale of his real estate in Chicago, and to 
mortgage his other holdings, lea^dng his estate encumbered for 
more than $90,000.^ Naturally he was not very amiable under 
these circumstances. 

Added to all this was the bitter, underhanded, unscrupulous 
fight made upon him by the Buchanan faction of his own 
party, the full force of which he was made to feel during 
the closing weeks of the campaign. Even in the joint debates, 
especially at Quincy and at Alton, he paid his respects to ' ' the 
contemptible crew" who were trying to break up the party 
and defeat him. Of course he charged that his opponent was 
in collusion with the Lecomptonites, seeking to accomplish his 
overthrow and ruin. But Lincoln, while he denied any such 
intrigue, did not disguise his satisfaction that the Democrats 

^ Steplien A. Douglas, by Allen JohnBon, pp. 382-3 (1908). 



THE CLOSING DEBATES 225 

were fighting among themselves, and smiled when he said, 
"Go it, husband! Go it, bear!" Douglas had a right to com- 
plain of the methods of his enemies in his own camp. Senator 
Slidell of Louisiana was in Illinois, spending money, and 
secretly circulating canards to the effect that Douglas owned 
slaves and mistreated them in a disgraceful and inhuman 
fashion. This tale was denied by Slidell, but not until after 
the election when the lie had done its worst. 

Wlien the rivals met at Galesburg, on October 7th, each was 
disposed to stick to his respective text, leaving personalities 
out of account. But Lincoln could not forget that Douglas 
had promised to investigate those spurious resolutions quoted 
at Ottawa and retracted at Freeport. Since then the Senator 
had been in Springfield, and Lincoln thought it was time for 
him to make a report of his research. But, as the fraud had 
served to catch votes, he suspected that his opponent was like 
the fisherman's wife, who, when her drowned husband was 
brought home with his body full of eels, said, ^'Take the eels 
out of him and set him again." He denied that he was ad- 
vocating social equality among whites and blacks, but he knew 
that it was of no avail, for, as he had said before, he had "no 
way of making an argument up into the consistency of a corn- 
cob and stopping his mouth with it." Knox County was 
Lincoln ground, and this fact not only put him in good mood, 
but drew from him some of the rarest gems of eloquence heard 
during the debates. To the charge that the Republican party 
was sectional he made a most impressive and prophetic reply, 
and then passed to the fundamental issue of the campaign. 
He reminded Senator Douglas that he himself was fast becom- 
ing sectional, and that ' ' his speeches would not go as current 
now south of the Ohio River " as they had formerly gone 
there — a fact which the Senator discovered to his grief when, 
after the election, he journeyed southward.^ 

If he has not thought of this, I commend to his considera- 
tion the evidence in his own declaration, on this day, of his 
becoming sectional too. I see it rapidly approaching. 



Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, pp. 393-4 (1909). 



226 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Whatever may be the result of this ephemeral contest be- 
tween Judge Douglas and myself, I see the day rapidly ap- 
proaching when his pill of sectionalism, which he has been 
thrusting down the throats of Republicans for years past, 
wull be crowded down his own throat. . . . Every thing 
that emanates from him or his coadjutors in their course of 
policy, carefully excludes the thought that there is any- 
thing wrong in slavery. ... If you will take the Judge's 
speeches, and select the short and pointed sentences ex- 
pressed by him — as his declaration that he " don't care 
whether slavery is voted up or down" — you will see at once 
that this is perfectly logical, if you do not admit that 
slavery is wrong. . . . He insists that, upon the score of 
equality, the owners of slaves and owners of property — of 
horses and every other sort of property — should be alike 
and hold them alike in a new Territory. That is perfectly 
logical, if the two species of property are alike and are 
equally founded in right. But if you admit that one of 
them is w^rong, you cannot institute any equality between 
right and wrong. And from this difference of senti- 
ment . . . arises the real difference between Judge 
Douglas and his friends on the one hand, and the Repub- 
licans on the other. 

Carl Schurz, then stumping the State for Lincoln, heard the 
debate at Quincy, on October 13th, and his description of the 
scene leaves nothing to be added.^ He found Lincoln calm, 
cool, and apparently as fresh as ever, good-humored, friendly, 
and shrewdly logical, while Douglas, harsh and broken of 
voice, gave unmistakable signs of nervous irritability, induced 
by physical fatigue. Douglas referred angrily to the "gross 
personalities and base insinuations" of Lincoln, whom he 
persistently called an Abolitionist. As to restraining the 
spread of slavery, he said that it was the policy of his ad- 
versary to "hem them in until starvation seizes them, and by 
starving them to death, he will put slavery in the course of 
ultimate extinction;" a silly argument, if such it may be 
called, made with a sneer that was half a hiss. Lincoln again 
pressed the sharp point that slavery was "a moral, a social, 
and a political wrong, ' ' which ' ' the leading man — I think I 
^ Eeminiscences, by Carl Schurz, Vol. II, pp. 89-96 (1909). 



THE CLOSING DEB ATES 227 

may do my friend Judge Douglas the honor of calling him 
such — advocating the present Democratic policy, never him- 
self says is wrong." So forcefully did he emphasize this as- 
pect of the case that Douglas winced and scowled under the 
implied moral obtuseness. Lincoln went on : 

I will add this, that if there be any man who does not believe 
that slavery is wrong . . . that man is misplaced, and 
ought to leave us. While, on the other hand, if there be 
any man in the Republican party who is impatient over the 
necessity springing from its actual presence, and is impa- 
tient of the constitutional guaranties thrown around it, and 
would act in disregard of these, he too is misplaced, stand- 
ing with us. He will find his place somewliere else ; for we 
have a due regard, so far as we are capable of understand- 
ing them, for all these things. This, gentlemen, as well as I 
can give it, is a plain statement of our principles in all their 
enormity. 

One of the chief assets of Douglas in the latter part of the 
campaign was the presence of his beautiful wife, whose grace, 
tact, and charm did much to smooth out the ruffles made by 
his rude vigor. She held receptions, largely attended by 
ladies, at the various places where he spoke, but there were also 
crowds of admiring gentlemen, and her exquisite diplomacy 
was a source of worry to the Republicans. Charles Bernays, 
editor of the St. Louis Anzeiger, and a strong Republican, up- 
on being introduced to the lady Senator was so captivated 
that he actually turned Democrat and advocated the election 
of Douglas. Thereafter the Anzeiger was a Douglas organ,^ 
and it is no wonder that Lincoln and his friends were fearful 
of a power which logic could not resist. 

From Quincy the leaders went by boat to Alton, where Lin- 
coln was joined by his wife who had come quietly down from 
Springfield to hear the last of the debates. Gustave Koerner 
found him in the sitting room of the hotel, in a somewhat de- 
spondent mood. He at once said, ' ' Let us go and see Mary, ' ' 
whom Koerner had met years before at a party in Lexington, 
Kentucky, when she was Mary Todd. "Now, tell Mary what 

1 Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, Vol. II, p. 66. 



228 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

you think of our chances," continued Lincoln; " she is rather 
dispirited." Koerner assured her that Lincoln would carry 
the State, and he was reasonably sure of the Legislature. To- 
gether they talked of the outlook, regretting, especially, the 
stand taken by Frank Blair, who was on his way from St. 
Louis with a boat full of Missouri Free-Soilers to cheer for 
Douglas. By this time an enthusiastic crowd, who had found 
out where Lincoln was, had surrounded the hotel; and their 
talk was at an end. They went without parade or fuss to 
the public square, where the debate was to be held. There 
Koerner met Douglas, whom he had not seen since 1856, and 
was greatly shocked by his appearance. His face was bronzed, 
bloated, and haggard, and his voice was so heavy and hoarse 
that he seemed at times to be barking.^ 

Despite his bad voice, Douglas opened the debate with one 
of the ablest speeches he had made during the entire canvass, 
winning sympathy for himself in his fight against the Lecomp- 
ton fraud ; quoting Jefferson Davis to confirm that he was in 
accord with the South; conjuring with the name of Henry 
Clay, as a bid for old Whig votes ; and, happily, omitting many 
of his stale misrepresentations of his opponent. As a bait for 
the large German vote, he insisted that the equality referred 
to in the Declaration of Independence, was the equality of 
white men, especially "men of European birth and descent." 
While prodding Lincoln for his evasive answer as to whether 
he would admit a new Slave State, he did not forget the ene- 
mies in his own camp, which was a house divided against it- 
self. In closing he sought to summarize the issues, by saying 
that he looked forward to the time when every State should 
be allowed to do as it pleased, and that he cared more for this 
principle than for all the negroes on earth. In reply Lincoln 
made one of the most incisive speeches of his life, which may 
be best illustrated by using a few maxim-like arguments, as 
he called them. 

I want to know if Buchanan has not as much right to be in- 
consistent as Douglas has? Has Douglas the exclusive 



1 Memoirs of Gustave Koerner, Vol. II, p. 67. 



J THE CLOSING DEBATES 229 

right, in this country, of being on all sides of all questions ? 

Although Henry Clay could say he wished every slave 
in the United States was in the country of his ancestors, I 
am denounced by those pretending to respect Clay for ut- 
tering a wish that it might some time, in some peaceful way, 
come to an end. 

How many Democrats are there about here who have 
left Slave States and come to the Free State of Illinois to 
get rid of the institution of slaverj'? I reckon there are a 
thousand to one. If the policy you are now advocating had 
prevailed when this country was in a Territorial condition, 
where would they have gone to get rid of it? 

The fathers of the government placed the institution 
where the public mind did rest in the belief that it was in 
the course of ultimate extinction. Let me ask why they 
made provision that the source of slavery — the African 
slave-trade — should be cut off at the end of twenty years ? 
Why did they make provision that in all the new territory 
we owned at that time, slavery should be forever inhibited, 
if they did not look to its being placed in the course of 
ultimate extinction? 

I understand the contemporaneous history of those times 
to be that covert language was used with a purpose, and 
that purpose was that in our constitution, which it was 
hoped and is still hoped will endure forever — when it 
should be read by intelligent and patriotic men, after the 
institution of slavery had passed from among us — there 
should be nothing on the fact of the great cliarter of liberty 
suggesting that such a thing as negro slavery ever existed 
among us. 

Is it not a false statesmanship that undertakes to build 
up a system of policy upon the basis of caring nothing about 
the very thing that everybody does care the most about — 
a thing which all experience shows we care a great deal 
about ? 

I defy any man to make an argument that will justify 
unfriendly legislation to deprive a slaveholder of his right 
to hold his slaves in a Territory, that will not equally, in 
all its length, breadth and thickness, furnish an argument 
for nullifying the Fugitive Slave Law. 

Judge Douglas has been the most prominent instrument 
in changing the institution of slavery which the fathers of 
the government expected to come to an end ere this — and 
putting it upon Brooks's cotton-gin basis — placing it where 



230 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

he openly confesses he has no desire there shall ever be an 
end of it. 

That is the real issue. That is the issue that will con- 
tinue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge 
Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal strug- 
gle between two principles — right and wrong — through- 
out the world. 

I was glad to express my gratitude at Quincy, and I re- 
express it here to Judge Douglas — that he looks to no end 
of the institution of slavery. That will help the people to 
see where the struggle really is. 

After a spirited rejoinder by Douglas, the great debates, 
matchless in our history for the importance of their subject 
and the skill of their conduct, came to a close. Whatever may 
have been the impressions of the hour, the speeches of Lincoln, 
when read in the calm light of today, far excel those of Doug- 
las in form, in texture, in temper, not less than in spirit and 
purpose. What strikes one, indeed, is the high art of the or- 
ator amidst the heat, hurry, and passion of such a contest. 
Clear thought is expressed with singular lucidity, each sen- 
tence having its special errand, each word its weight, with 
never either too much or too little. There are glints of wit 
and touches of humor, but what is borne in upon the reader 
is the earnestness, the gravity, and at times the almost religi- 
ous solemnity of the man. He was not merely an office-seek- 
er, still less a mere agitator, but a man who thought justly, 
loved the truth, and sought to serve his nation and his race. 
That Lincoln won by his appeal to reason in the forum is 
shown by the fact that his party published the debates in 
1860,^ while the party of Douglas refused to do so. 

IV 

But the campaign did not end with the debates. In fact, the 
joint discussions were only a tithe of what the two leaders 
did and said during the canvass, both speaking almost every 

1 The edition, published by Follett, Foster & Co., Columbus, Ohio, in- 
cluded the speeches of Lincoln in Ohio, in 1859. The same firm issued 
the campaign Life of Lincoln, by William Dean Howells. 



THE CLOSING DEBATES 231 

day in the intervals between the debates, and afterward — 
Douglas still journeying in his special car, with artillery at- 
tachment; Lincoln finding rest the best way he could, some- 
times curled up on miserable railway seats, wrapped in his 
shawl. There were, besides, other speakers doing valiant ser- 
\ace — Lovejoy, Palmer, Oglesby, Chase of Ohio, Carl Schurz, 
and especially Senator Trumbull, who was a "political debater, 
scarcely, if at all, inferior to either Lincoln or Douglas. ' ' ^ 
Amid the intense excitement of the closing days many men 
shifted their position, and one of the sorrows of Lincoln was 
the loss of his friend, Judge T. Lyle Dickey, who went over 
to the enemy. Dickey secured a letter from John J. Critten- 
den, of Kentucky, urging the old line Whigs to vote for Doug- 
las, as a necessary rebuke to Buchanan.- This letter was cir- 
culated clandestinely and without warning in doubtful dis- 
tricts just on the eve of the election, and before its influence 
could be counteracted. Other forces, even more disastrous, 
were at work, as may be seen from the letters of Herndon : 

Springfield, 111., October 26, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I really regret to hear that you are sick and 
confined to your bed. I hope that you are not very ill — 
so ill that you cannot soon talk and ' ' yarn ' ' and laugh with 
your bosom friends. Come, keep in good spirits and be 
merry. If you were in Illinois and could only see how the 
great human family is progressing justicewards, social- 
wards and religiouswards, you would thank God and take 
courage. 

The Republicans are full of hope and wild with enthusi- 
asm, all educated and drilled to duty in this great canvass 
that is now apace approaching. Our forces are eager, well 
drilled and compact, and are only waiting the word "Go!" 
Do not understand me to say that all is surely and absolute- 
ly safe ; but understand this — all looks well, feels right in 
our hones. If we are defeated it will be on this account: 
there are thousands of wild, roving, robbiug, bloated, pock- 



1 Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Chap, by Horace White. 

2 Life of Lincoln, by W. C. Whitney, pp. 271-3 (1907). The Crit- 
tenden letter is there published. Also Life of Crittenden, by Coleman, 
Vol. II, p. 163. 



232 LIN COLN AND HEBNDON 

marked Irish, who are thrown in on us by the Douglas De- 
mocracy for the purpose of outvoting us — robbing us of our 
' ' popular will. " If we are defeated there is onlj^ one thing 
that will do it, and that is wrong, fraud, bribery, and cor- 
ruption. We knotv our men in each precinct, town, county, 
district, and section, and we have the majority. Enclosed 
I send you a slip cut from the Chicago Press and Trihutie 
showing that there is danger from the causes aforesaid. 
Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Alas, as with the campaign, so with Theodore Parker, whose 
life had been a splendid campaign in behalf of private nobil- 
ity and public justice, it was the beginning of the end: he 
was smitten with ''the great white plague." From his bed 
he watched the heroic struggle in Illinois, which had now be- 
come as desperate as it was heroic. One need not charge Sen- 
ator Douglas with corruption, but it is not a matter of doubt 
that his party, determined to rebuke Buchanan and to defeat 
Lincoln, resorted to fraud. It is true that there had been a 
panic the year before, and that many men were out of work, 
but it was no accident that thousands of idle Irish in Phila- 
delphia, New York, St. Louis, and other cities, were moved by 
a simultaneous impulse to seek employment in Illinois, and 
that they so persistently sought it in the doubtful counties of 
the State. They came in train-loads, boatfuls, and in droves, 
flooding the central counties. Indignation rose to fever heat, 
threats of violence and bloodshed were rife, and the press was 
ablaze with protest. Still, the Republicans were confident of 
victory, but Herndon, prompted by his intuition — his "brute 
forecast, " as he called it — felt that all was not safe. Three 
days before the election he wrote : 

Springfield, 111., October 30, 1858. 
Mr. Parker. 

Friend : — Today is Saturday and in a little while Mr. 
Lincoln opens on our square, close to the State House, on 
the great, vital, and dominant issues of the day and age. 
We feel, as usual, full of enthusiasm and of hope, and there 
is nothing which can well defeat us but the elements, and 
the wandering, roving, robbing Irish, who have flooded 
over the State. This charge is no humbug cry : it is a real 



THE CLOSING DEBATES 233 

and solid and terrible reality, looking us right in the face, 
with its thumb on its nose. We, throughout the State, have 
this question before us: "What shall we do? Shall we 
tamely submit to the Irish, or shall we rise and cut their 
throats ? " If blood is shed in Illinois to maintain the puri- 
ty of the ballot-box, and the rights of the popular will, do 
not be at all surprised. We are roused and fired to fury. 
My feelings are ideas to some extent and therefore cool — 
I try to persuade both parties to keep calm and cool, if pos- 
sible ; but let me say to you, that there is great and im- 
minent danger of a general and terrible row, and if it com- 
mences woe be to the Irish — poor fellows ! 

You know my position now, and let me state to you that 
I am amidst the knowing ones, clubs, county committees, 
State committees, leaders, sagacious men, etc., and from all 
places and persons comes up this intelligence, "All is well." 
I, myself, fear and am scolded because 1 cannot feel as I 
should — as others do. My intuition — brute forecast, if you 
will — my bones, tell he that all is not safe ; yet I hope for 
the best. How are you — are you up and walking about? 
Quit reading and writing, if you can, and go off on a spree. 
Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

Happily the election passed off quietly, barring a few fist fights, 
and with a full vote in spite of the downpour of rain. Lincoln 
carried the State but was defeated for the Senate. The popular 
vote stood. Republicans, 125,430 ; Douglas Democrats, 121,609 ; 
Buchanan Democrats, 5,191. The total vote cast exceeded that 
cast in 1856 by many thousands, especially the Democratic 
vote, which showed an increase not accounted for by the growth 
of population.^ The Republican State ticket was elected by a 
good majority. One who would know the relative strength of 
Lincoln and Douglas must examine the vote cast for the mem- 
bers of the lower house of the Legislature. Avowed Douglas 
men polled over 174,000, while the Lincoln men received over 
190,000, and the Buchanan " crew" less than 2,000; yet the 
Republicans, with so huge a majority, won only thirty-five 
seats, while the Democratic minority secured forty. Of the 
fifteen contested Senatorial seats, the Democrats won eight 
with a total vote of 44,826, as compared with the Republicans 
^Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, pp. 391-2 (1909). 



234 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

who cast 53,784 votes and won only seven. That is to say, 754 
votes cast in " Egypt " offset 1,000 polled in " Canaan," as 
the two ends of the State were named. Here was proof ab- 
solute that the State was gerrymandered, as Lincoln had said, 
in favor of the Democrats. Writing to Mr. Parker, Herndon 
reported the causes of defeat: 

Springfield, lU., Nov. 8, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — We are beaten in Illinois, as you are aware ; 
but you may want to know the causes of our defeat. Firstly, 
then, I have more than once said our State presents three 
distinct phases of human development : the extreme north, 
the middle, and the extreme south. The first is intelligence, 
the second timidity, and the third ignorance on the special 
issue, but goodness and bravery. If a man spoke to suit 
the north — for freedom, justice — this killed him in the cen- 
ter, and in the south. So in the center, it killed him north 
and south. So in the south, it surely killed him north. 
Lincoln tried to stand high and elevated, so he fell deep. 

Secondly, Greeley never gave us one single, solitary, man- 
ly lift. On the contrary, his silence was his opposition. 
This our people felt. We never got a smile or a word of 
encouragement outside of Illinois from any quarter during 
all this great canvass. The East was for Douglas hy silence. 
This silence was terrible to us. Seward was against us too. 
Thirdly, Crittenden wrote letters to Illinois urging the 
Americans and Old Line Whigs to go for Douglas, and so 
they went " helter-skelter." Thousands of Whigs dropped 
us just on the eve of the election, through the influence of 
Crittenden. 

Fourthly, all the pro-slavery men, north as well as south, 
went to a man for Douglas. They threw into this State 
money and men, and speakers. These forces and powers 
we were wholly denied by our Northern and Eastern 
friends. This cowed us somewhat, but let it go. Do you 
know what Byron says about revenge ? He goes off in this 
wise : ' ' There never was yet human power, ' ' etc. I shall 
make no hasty pledges, notwithstanding. I am bent on act- 
ing practically, so that I can help choke down slavery, 
and so I shall say nothing — not a word. 

Fifthly, thousands of roving, robbing, bloated, pock- 
marked Catholic Irish were imported upon us from Phila- 



THE CLOSING DEBATES 235 

delphia, New York, St. Louis, and other cities.^ I myself 
know of such, by their own confession. Some have been ar- 
rested, and are now in jail awaiting trial. 

I want distinctly to say to you that no one of all these 
causes defeated Lincoln; but I do want to say that it was 
the combination, with the power and influence of each, that 
' ' cleaned us out. ' ' Do you not now see that there is a con- 
spiracy afloat which threatens the disorganization of the 
Republican party? Do you not see that Seward, Greeley, 
and Crittenden, etc., are at this moment in a joint common 
understanding to lower our platform ? 

In conclusion let me say that as Douglas has got all 
classes to " boil his pot," with antagonistic materials and 
forces, that there is bound, by the laws of nature, to be an 
explosion — namely, somebody will be fooled. Look out! 
Greeley is a natural fool, I think, in this matter — his hearty 
Douglas position. So with Seward, Crittenden, with South 
and North. Douglas cannot hold all these places and men. 
Mark that ! I am busy at Court and have no time to cut 
down or amplify — hope you can understand. 

Your friend, W H. Herndon. 

Of course Lincoln was disappointed,^ but he could still joke. 
He felt, he said, "like the boy that stumped his toe — it hurt 
too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry." His feelings 

1 One feature of the campaign, not mentioned by Mr. Herndon, -was 
the activity of the Illinois Central Kailroad. Its managers and em- 
ployees were for Douglas, almost to a man. Indeed, the railroad interest 
of the State was chiefly responsible for the importation of voters, be- 
cause it had favors to ask of the Legislature. The Illinois Central 
could afford to be industrious, if by so doing it could obtain release 
from the payment into the State treasury of 7 per cent of its gross 
earnings. — Quincy Whig, Nov. 6, 1858 ; The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 
by Sparks, p. 536 (1909). ^.-^ 

2 Two days following the election, at a meeting in Manchester,' Ohio, 
reported in the Sandusky, Ohio, Commercial Eegister, Lincoln was men- 
tioned for the Presidency. This occasioned wide comment and elicited 
tributes to Lincoln in the Illinois press, but no Illinois paper seems 
to have named him for that highest office until May 4, 1859, when the 
Central Illinois Gazette, of Champaign, edited by J. W. Scroggs, took 
it up. The article was written by W. O. Stoddard. — Life of Lincoln, 
by W. C. Whitney, pp. 262-5 (1892). Lamon says that he saw in Lin- 
coln's possession, shortly before his death, a letter written by J. G. 
Blaine during the campaign of 1858, in which it was predicted that 



236 L INCOLN AND HEBNDON 

had been so deeply engaged, he had worked so hard, and the 
result, especially towards the last, had been so uncertain, that 
defeat was trying. That he felt it keenly is show^n by his re- 
mark to Whitney the day after the election: " I can't help 
it, and I expect everybody to leave us ; " and in his letter to 
Governor Crittenden, in which he said: " The emotions of 
defeat in which I felt more than a merely selfish interest and 
to which defeat the use of your name contributed largely, are 
fresh upon me. ' ' Yet he was glad that he made the race, for 
it gave him a hearing " on the great and durable question of 
the age which I would have had in no other way ; and although 
I now sink out of \'iew and shall be forgotten, I believe I have 
made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty 
long after I am gone." But, instead of sinking out of sight, 
he rose from the dust of defeat a National figure — no longer 
merely a leader of his party in his State, but the leader of a 
great people. 



Douglas would beat Lincoln for the Senatorship bat would be beaten by 
Lincoln for the Presidency in 1860. — Life of Lincoln, by Norman Hap- 
good, pp. 141-142 (1901). 



CHAPTER Ylll 

Lincoln's Herndon 

Added to the chagrin of defeat, Lincoln had to endure a light- 
ness of purse that was actually painful. "The fight must go 
on, ' ' he wrote to Henry Asbury a few days after the election ; 
' ' the cause of civil liberty must not be surrendered at the end 
of one or even one hundred defeats;" but while the good 
wishes showered upon him from all parts of the North put 
him in good heart, they did not relieve his finances. His law 
practice had been neglected ; the canvass had cost him time and 
money ; and he had to cast about him for funds. To cap it all, 
he was asked by Norman Judd, chairman of the State Com- 
mi^ttee, to help make up a deficit in the campaign purse ! He 
replied : 

I am willing to pay according to my ability, but I am the 
poorest hand living to get others to pay. I have been on 
expense so long, without earning anything, that I am ab- 
solutely without money now for even household expenses. 
Still, if you can put in $250 for me towards discharging the 
debt of the committee, I ^dll allow it when you and I settle 
the private matter between us. This, with what I have al- 
ready paid, . . . will exceed my subscription of $500. This, 
too, is exclusive of my ordinary expenses during the cam- 
paign, all of which, being added to my loss of time and busi- 
ness, bears pretty heavily upon one no better off than I am. 
But as I had the post of honor, it is not for me to be over- 
nice. You are feeling badly; "and this, too, shall pass 
away;" never fear. 

Many invitations came to him to make speeches ; and in order 
to respond he prepared a lecture on Discoveries, Inventions, 
and Improvements, hoping thereby to recoup his losses. He 
began with Adam and Eve, and the invention of the "fig-leaf 
apron," of which he gave a humorous description, passing 



238 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

thence to the invention of letters, writing, printing, of the ap- 
plication of steam and electricity ; all of which he classed under 
the head of "inventions and discoveries." He gave a shrewd 
and satirical portrait of Douglas's "Young America,*' pos- 
sessed by the Platonic "longing after" territory — and a "per- 
fect rage for the ' new ' ; particularly the new earth mentioned 
in Revelation, in which, being no more sea, there must be about 
three times as much land as in the present. He is a great 
friend of humanity; and his desire for land is not selfish," 
quoth Lincoln, "but merely an impulse to extend the area of 
freedom" — with much more of the same political fooling, 
along with the "invention of negroes, or the present mode of 
using them." For the rest, aside from its ripples of humor, 
it was rather commonplace, and after delivering it once or 
twice he gave it up. When he went to Clinton to lecture no 
one turned out, and the local paper remarked: "That does 
not look much like being President. ' ' In fact, he soon realized 
that he was not a success outside the political field, and that he 
needed a moral issue to bring out his powers. Somewhat de- 
jectedly he returned to the law, from which he had tried more 
than once to escape. 

I 

No one could gainsay that Douglas had achieved a great per- 
sonal \'ictory, against heavy odds.^ In the East, Republican 
papers applauded him heartily, not so much because they 
lacked sympathy with Lincoln, as because they regarded his 
triumph as a signal rebuke to Buchanan, and because they 
hoped that he would do yet further damage to the Democratic 
party. This expectation was a source of cheer in anti-slavery 
circles, where the defeat of Lincoln was a real grief. So 
Theodore Parker, in his last letter to Mr. Herndon, interprets 
the scene, foretelling what he saw in the future : 

1 Many tributes have been paid to Douglas by men of opposite polit- 
ical faith; notably, by I. N. Arnold, Life of Lincoln, pp. 149-50 (1884) ; 
by J. G. Blaine, Twenty Tears of Congress, Vol. I, p. 149 (1884); by 
Horace Greeley, Eecollections of a Busy Life, pp. 357-59 (1869); by 
Gustave Koerner, and others. 



LINCOLN ^S HERNDON 239 

Boston, Mass., Nov. 13, 1858. 
My Dear Sir : — I am your debtor for three letters, very in- 
structive ones too. I should not have allowed the account to 
run on so, had I not been sick. A surgical operation laid 
me on my bed for nearly three weeks, and, of course, I wrote 
only with another's hand, and but little even in that wise. 

So you "are beaten;" the reasons you give are philo- 
sophical and profound, it seems to me. I think you have 
hit the nail on the head. But I don't agree with you as to 
Seward : what private reasons you have for your opinion, I 
cannot say, but his two speeches at Rochester and at Rome 
don't look like lowering the platform. He never spoke so 
bold and brave before. He quite outruns his party, and no 
Republican paper in New England, I fear, has dared to re- 
publish them. The anti-slavery papers printed one, and 
perhaps will copy the other. 

You are beaten, but I am not so sure the Adminisiration 
do not think it a worse defeat that you do. I think they 
hated and feared Douglas more than Lincoln. Had Lincoln 
succeeded, Douglas would be a ruined man. He would have 
no political position, and so little political power ; he would 
have no original influence in American politics, for he does 
not deal with principles which a man may spread abroad 
from the pulpit or by the press, but only wdth measures that 
require political place to carry out. He could do the Ad- 
ministration no harm. But now in place for six years more, 
with his personal power unimpaired, and his positional 
power much enhanced, he can do the Democratic party a 
world of damage. 

Here is what I conjecture will take place. There will be 
a reconstruction of the Democratic platform on Douglas's 
"principles" (else they lose the nation). This involves the 
(actual but not expressed) repudiation of Buchanan, and 
the sacrifice of his cabinet officers, etc. He will sink as low 
as Pierce. In 1860 the convention will nominate a man of 
the Douglas ideas. Will it be Douglas himself? I doubt it, for 
he has so many foes in the North and the South, that I think 
they will not risk him. But if he has heart enough to carry 
the convention, then I think the fight will be between him 
and Seward and that he will be beaten ! I look for an anti- 
slavery administration in 1861 — I hope with Seward at its 
head. But it requires a deal of skill to organize a party, to 
find a harness which all the North can work in ; but we shall 
triumph, vide Hammond 's speech. Yours truly, 

Theodore Parker. 



240 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

So, no doubt, it would have turned out in the ordinary run of 
affairs; but in times of crises the best laid plans of prophets 
"gang aft agley." Rapid and radical changes took place be- 
fore 1860, and Parker himself, before he died, turned from 
Seward to Lincoln as the true leader ; due in part, perhaps, to 
the influence of Herndon, but in larger part to the fact that 
Seward had outrun his party, while Lincoln by his conservative 
radicalism had made himself the spokesman of all phases of the 
anti-slavery sentiment — the one man upon whom the North 
could unite. Nor did Mr. Herndon fail to rebuke Greeley for 
his lukewarmness toward Lincoln and the Illinois contest, in- 
quiring if the philosopher intended to follow the logic of his 
situation and support Douglas for the Presidency in 1860. 
Judging from the rather curt reply, it must have been a sting- 
ing letter : 

New York, N. Y., Nov. 14, 1858. 
Friend Herndon : — I do not think I could write editorials 
that would seem to you lucid or satisfactory. Perhaps you 
will not be able to understand me when I advise you pri- 
vately that: (1) Mr. Douglas would be the strongest candi- 
date that the Democratic party could present for President ; 
but (2) they will not present him. The old leaders won't en- 
dure it. (3) As he is doomed to be slaughtered at Charles- 
ton it is good policy to fatten him meantime. He will cut 
the better at killing time. 

The Republicans of Illinois might have had Douglas with 
them in their late struggles, as those of Pennsylvania had 
Hickman, Indiana had Davis, New Jersey had Adrian, and 
New York had H. F. Clark and Haskins. Some of these 
may treat us badly ; but a majority of them will prove sound 
coin. But the Republicans of Illinois chose to have the 
anti-Lecompton Democrats against rather than with them. 
In consequence, the State will cast a majority of its votes 
next December ('59) for a Democrat Speaker, while Penn- 
sylvania will throw 21 to 4 ; New Jersey 5 to ; and New 
York 28 to 4 on the right side. Your course may prove 
wiser in the long run ; but ours vindicates itself at the out- 
set. A gain of 25 members of Congress in three contiguous 
States is our answer to all gainsayers. Yours, 

Horace Greeley. 

But to Herndon such gains, made at the expense of lowering 



LINCOLN >S HERNDON 241 

the party ideal and defeating its leaders, were not gains but 
losses. What he may have replied to Greeley, if he replied at 
all, we know not ; but his real answer to such pseudo-practical 
opportunism may be found in his subsequent letters to ]\Ir. 
Parker, to whom he continued to write until that frail and 
heroic figure passed out of hearing. His letter surveys the 
situation with a remarkable grasp of facts and tendencies, 
questioning the wisdom of Seward in announcing an "irre- 
pressible conflict," justifying the attitude of the Illinois Re- 
publicans in refusing to support Douglas, and giving an esti- 
mate of Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, whose speech, 
denouncing the Lecompton fraud, had created a sensation. He 
wrote : 

Springfield, 111., Nov. 23, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I am ten thousand times obliged to you for 
your very kind letter, answering two or three I wrote to you 
concerning Illinois politics, and our Republican defeat, Lin- 
coln, for the time being, our standard bearer. I never sup- 
posed I was writing a philosopliic or profound letter. I 
knew I was spinning out quickly and inartistically what I 
saw. I owe you one, as we say West, and I will pay you 
some time in as good and pure coin. Remember that, and 
take it in good humor when it comes. 

You state that you and I disagree about Senator Seward. 
Not at all : it was my rapid loose writing that misled you. 
I suppose, from what you say, that I put my verb in the 
present, when it should have been in the past. What I in- 
tended to say was this: There was once a conspiracy to 
lower the Republican platform, and in that conspiracy were 
Douglas, Seward, Wilson, Greeley, and the whole North in 
Congress. This I hnoiv. The manner — one of them — 
was to uphold Douglas and throw away Illinois; and this 
was done upon the condition that Douglas would war hugely 
against Lecompton. Let me see if I can convince you of my 
meaning. This conspiracy was on tapis, but was to a cer- 
tain extent frustrated because Judge Trumbull would not 
agree to sacrifice Lincoln. The wild stampede in Illinois 
put things in a complex condition, and so left all men to act 
in "tact," according to discretion. To keep good faith witli 
Douglas, Greeley, so far as he could, kept silent, and had 
we not rebelled at this wholesale traffic of principle, pru- 



242 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

dence, and justice, it would have been just as I told you. 
Illinois Republicanism acted wisely, and I am one to get it 
so to act — that is, I helped to form an opinion and act en- 
ergetically upon it. I will take that much of the dread re- 
sponsibility and bide my time for sound judgments. 

This conspiracy is not wholly abandoned yet. I rather 
guess that some leaders — such as Crittenden, etc. — want 
it yet to take place. I landed home from Washington and 
the East, and told our people what I told you. I have no 
private opinion on politics that I do not tell you. The feel- 
ing still to support Douglas is not yet wholly wiped out. 
This whole original understanding being shattered, and 
driven into spray, whipped into mist, left Seward free, and 
hence he burst out at Rochester and at Rome. By the by, 
these speeches are brave, bold, manly, earth-true, but is it, 
was it, prudent, wise, sagacious in Seward to utter them? 
"Wliat say you? What think you? The people are still 
tender footed as a whole. Some localities, as Boston, may be 
rough-iron shod, but behold Indiana and Illinois. Wisdom 
looks out generally, sweeping parts as well as wholes. Re- 
formers, to effect anything politically, must have more than 
a bare majority. Hell 's retrogrades sit upon customs, hab- 
its, disgusts, and bid you lay siege. Reformers must get so 
low, crawl along in the mud till a working majority sticks. 
Not so with any despotism — enough has already stuck to it 
by habit, custom, and education. Was it, now, wise in 
Seward to go out so wide sweeping? I doubt it. His 
speeches are^eloquent, logical, philosophic, so much so, as you 
well say, that no New England paper dare publish them, 
except those of rank radical anti-slavery flags. I can see 
which way human ideas tend and march ; and I know that 
mankind will follow the ideal, but what I see is that all men 
do not, now. So, was it prudent ? 

You say that Douglas will not be the Democratic nominee 
in 1860 ; that he will not receive the Charleston convention 
nomination; and that if he does he will be defeated. I 
think I agree with you, yet I shiver : there is a kind of vic- 
tory fatality — a manifest destiny — hanging ' ' round 
loose" about Douglas, and this idea makes me dread the fu- 
ture as a child does the dark. I received a letter from Hor- 
ace Greeley, dated November 17th, in which he says : 

"First, Mr. Douglas would be the strongest candidate 
that the Democracy could present for President, but. Sec- 
ondly, they will not present him. The old leaders will not 



LINCOLN'S HEBNDON 243 

endure it; and Thirdly, as he is doomed to be defeated at 
Charleston, it is a good policy to flatter him, ' ' etc. 

So here, you, Greeley, and myself agree in the main. Let 
me ask you one question : If Greeley saw all this — Doug- 
las's uprise and the consequent danger to Republicanism — 
beforehand, why did he not "jump in" and defeat the up- 
rising of this monster in politics. Can he answer it ? Doug- 
las is now upon the nation, and how shall it shake him off? 
He is a man of no deep-hearted feelings — no wide, uni- 
versal, uprising, outspreading ideas — no such thing in that 
little man 's brains. He sits down in a mid-corner, and says 
to the rushing world, as it sweeps by, searching for its grand 
ideal, ' ' Here and Now ! Attend to the Here and the Now — 
no hereafter, no higher law, no God that never slumbers, 
watching justice." Well, it is too bad, but it is not my 
philosophy to lie down and grunt or whine. I will fight him 
again and again. 

Your refer to Hammond's speech. I have read it, and 
now do you remember what I told you about him? I said 
he was a good man by nature, was doing violence to his own 
innate justice when he was making his speech about slavery, 
mud sills, etc. You draw an inference from his speech that 
is not, I think, warranted. Your inference is this — a 
change of Southern sentiment. The fact, I think, is here : 
Hammond was made to think in the Senate, and that led him 
back to old child justice ; it is an individual change that will 
not amount to much. I see the Southern papers are down 
on him. "We will soon see which way things drift. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

For weeks after the election the Eastern papers not only 
lauded Douglas, but upbraided the Illinois Republicans for not 
supporting him. The Boston Traveller, especially, was bitter 
in its scolding, going so far as to charge that the Illinois leaders, 
' ' merely to gratify a personal and political hatred, ' ' had acted 
with a handful of Buchanan Democrats in having Douglas men 
removed from office, "thus becoming the tools of the very 
'slave-power' which they are so fond of denouncing, ' ' They had 
compelled their party in the nation to throw aside the certainty 
of success in 1860, and return to the wilderness where thuy may 
wander for forty years, if not forever. "Parties, like individ- 
uals, ' ' continued this wise journal of the East, ' ' have their gold- 



244 L INCOLN AND HEBNDON 

en moments ; but if they neglect to improve them, those mo- 
ments rarely return." Indeed, it has not been generally real- 
ized under what handicaps Lincoln and his friends labored in 
that contest. They fought not only Douglas at home, where his 
power and popularity in his party were next to omnipotent, 
but the whole Republican party outside of the State, together 
with the American party and the entire South. Turn which- 
soever way they would, they met an enemy. Contending, hand 
to hand, with the most powerful, the most unscrupulous, and 
most facile and audacious foe that free principles ever liad in 
the North, whose violations of the rules of political warfare 
were without parallel, every effort of their friends abroad was 
on the side of their enemies at home. They lost the Senate, but 
they did not lose the fight, even when waged against such odds ; 
for, as the Chicago Press and Tribune said, the chief victory 
was actually won : 

We have demonstrated the power of Republicanism as an 
element in all future contests, and its incorruptibility, at 
least in Illinois, when tempted by prospects of immediate 
success. We have dissolved the coalition once half formed, 
by which our platform was to be let down, by which our 
principles would have lost their vitality, and by which suc- 
cess in 1860 would have been ten-fold more disastrous than 
defeat. So far, well. And now for the future: We be- 
lieve it is the intention of Illinois Republicans to go right on 
in the course that they have marked out — to ask no aid that 
conviction of the justice and necessity of their principles 
will not bring — to make no alliances, offensive or defensive, 
with any faction, party, or clique — to ask no favor — to 
give no quarter — to fight the great battle for the ascend- 
ency of free principles as zealous, earnest men should — to 
be content with defeat as long as it must be endured — to 
use success wisely when we win it. If we are to have the 
co-operation of the party elsewhere, well ; if not, Illinois is 
sovereign, and her sons can walk alone ! 

Such was the ultimatum from "the land of full-grown men," 
nor could they be begged, bribed, or threatened to retract it; 
and by that sign they conquered. It is not too much to say — 
as, in fact, Lincoln did say in his letter to S. P. Chase, a few 
months later — that, had not the Republicans of Illinois made 



LINCOLN >S HEBNDQN 245 

their stand, the party would have gone to pieces utterly. Yet 
there are those who marvel that Lincoln was placed at the head 
of the ticket in 1860, as though it were a happy accident in 
politics. What has hitherto been dim ought now to he plain, 
for the men who stood back of Lincoln were of his spirit, as un- 
compromising in principle as they were astute and cunning in 
method. Mr. Herndon makes the situation transparent : 

Springfield, 111., Nov. 27, 1858. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I was one of those spontaneous, instinctive, 
and it may be far-seeing. Suckers, that made Illinois mutin- 
ous against the Douglas-Greeley sale of Illinois and Repul)- 
licanism therein. Our course or Greeley's I want you to 
approve. If our course was wrong, say so ; if Greeley's, say 
so. Now look at the facts and tlie men : Firstly, take Has- 
kins, and small men of such calibre, who can send no great 
political whirlwind up or down. The Republicans of New 
York and New England can afford to stoop and palaver with 
them — get them to stick, and lift them up on the broad 
shoulders of rigorous Republicanism, walking off witli them 
to the camp of real democracy. He and such live no longer 
— • are wholly absorbed. Here Greeley did right — no dan- 
ger in this : it was child's play — but, Secondly, take Doug- 
las: he is a huge mud-giant, who, if you but stoop to him, 
fastens his clutches around your neck and keeps you down 
in the mud, carrying you oft' into the sham democracy. There 
is no absorption and uplifting here — far otherwise : the 
uplifting and absorption turn out to be the reverse of foolish 
expectancy. 

In the first place the Republicans can disorganize, and at 
the call of the drum and fife, and other political screeehings, 
they can soon get together again ; but this is not so in Doug- 
las 's case. Now what is wise in New York over HasJdns, is 
not wise in Illinois over Douglas — far otherwise. Then for 
Greeley to set down a law for us was foolish, absurd, in 
short, idiotic. 

When I was at Washington and in the East I found out 
from Judge Trumbull and others that there was a disposi- 
tion to sell out Illinois, and to lower the Republican plat- 
form in general, to suit Douglas's low standard of right and 
wrong. I went to New York and Greeley by inuucndor.'^ 
startled me — went to your Boston and found out about the 
same thing. I knew Douglas, had known him for years, 80 



246 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

did our people — all knew him to the core. So we met, 
talked over the matter in Chicago, and the universal senti- 
ment was this : Can't trust Douglas ; if we run him it must 
be on distinct Democratic Cincinnati platforms, under- 
propped by a foul substratum of despotism, and fully de- 
veloped pro-slaveryism. So every man sent up his individ- 
ual ' ' No, ' ' and along with it all said ' ' Never ! ' ' 

What, then, shall be done ? Shall we run Douglas, and 
become, if not in intent a pro-slavery party, in fact false, 
sham Democrats, every one of us. If we run him we must 
disorganize and become forces for slavery in 1860 ; for once 
disorganized and following Douglas one year, we are 
swamped, gone out of this world's sight into slavery wor- 
ship. So here we are, and now what shall be done ? Shall 
we run Lincoln, love liberty, and keep organized for the 
great, deep, momentous turning battle of 1860 ? Individual 
shouts sent up their everlasting ' ' Yes, ' ' and so the universal 
went wedded to the individual Well, Lincoln was our man, 
and lAherty and God our motto! We were whipped, as you 
are sadly aware, doubtless. What looms up great and grand 
in the distance ? 

Come, go back with me one moment. If we went for 
Douglas we had to give up Republicanism and wholly dis- 
organize. We are on the ground — see this everywhere. 
Our good neighbors say so, our heads say so. Can distant 
Greeley say, ''liars?" — pshaw! Are the Eastern politi- 
cians all fools ? They seem to be so. I am a young, undis- 
ciplined, uneducated, wild man, but I can see to the gizzard 
of this question. We are all disorganized in Illinois and 
shouting for Douglas, and the blast of the bugle, bursting 
on the air, blown by Freedom, calling to her braves, rolls 
upon us in 1860 — and where are we? Why, disorganized, 
hooting for Douglas, and for slavery. Pretty fix, and Gree- 
ley says — ' ' All right. ' ' My dog-sagacity, my mud instinct, 
says — fool! St6op for Haskins and Davis, Greeley may; 
but for Douglas, let him and the world beware ! What can 
the North do in 1860 with Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, etc., 
disorganized ? Why, get whipped out. Greeley, horn-eyed, 
says, "All right, just the thing, quite practical, easy to be 
done." And to which I say, "Easy if you want to elect a 
pro-slavery Southern man for 1860." 

Come, go back with me once more, and now what do you 
see in Illinois? Why, a well-drilled, "Fritz" organized, 
educated, liberty-loving, God-fearing Republican party, 



LINCOLN'S HERNDON 247 

broad and wide-awake, ready for the fight, shouting for man, 
liberty, justice, God and their complex duties and relations, 
now and forever. Greeley, shaking his Fourrier head at us, 
may be seen, crying, "All wrong." Well, it may be so; 
but I cannot see it. 

I say I came home after discovering the Greeley-Douglas- 
Seward-Crittenden tendencies, and told our people of them. 
They had faith in what I said, and more in their own souls, 
and so we went to war most mutinous. We are, for Senator, 
whipped, but not for State officers; and so, thank God, we 
are this day a sober, staunch, incorrigible fact and force in 
Republicanism. Here we are : feel our nerves, and muscles, 
and bones ; they are all in place, a vital, healthy, living organ- 
ism, ready to function at God 's order — ' ' Up and at them ! ' ' 
Excuse me. Could not help it. Must spit it out. 

Your friend, W. H. PIerndon. 

On January 6th, the Illinois Legislature met in joint session to 
elect a Senator, and no man ventured, or desired, to change his 
vote. Douglas received fifty-four votes, Lincoln forty-six. 
* * Glory to God and the Sucker Democracy, ' ' Lanphier, of the 
State Register, telegraphed to his chief.^ And back over the 
wires from Washington came the laconic reply, ' ' Let the voice 
of the people rule. ' ' But, in view of the figures of the election 
returns, the voice of the people must have seemed in this in- 
stance somewhat husky. A few days later Herndon, hearing 
that Mr. Parker was ill, wrote to inquire the cause : 

Springfield, 111., Jan. 15, 1859. 
Friend Parker: 

I am in our Supreme Court hearing discussed the differ- 
ence between ' ' tweedledee and tweedledum ' ' — a fine spun 
point over an absurdity woven out by some priest 1200 years 
gone by now. Whilst this is going on I am reading your 
' lecture on Mr. Adams, a synopsis of it rather, and it rings 
like you ; at once finely analytic, profoundly synthetic, truly 
discriminating and philosophic. It is honest, candid, and 
places Mr. Adams where my instincts — not my reading — 
placed him. I see more pleasure in reading this than the 
lawyers do in their heated, foaming discussion. I hate the 
law : it cramps me ; it seems to me priestly and barbaric. I 
am above the suspicion of not knowing somewhat of the his- 

1 Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, p. 392 (1908). 



248 L INCOLN AND HERNDON 

tory, spirit, and principles of the law, and my feelings do 
not come of disappointment. 1 say I hate the law. 

I hear you are still unwell, and hardly able to be out at- 
tending to your business or lecturing. I hope it is nothing 
serious. What is the matter, if it is not prying into a man's 
private matters too much? I hope you will let your four 
lectures on Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin 
come out soon. Can you not do this without infringing too 
much on your calculations? By the by, no man has yet let 
out a philosophic idea of the causes of the American Revolu- 
tion, or the principles which lay thereunder — no, not one. 
Can you not do this in some of your lectures? Again, 1 
never have seen or read or heard of a good lecture on the 
sweep of human liberty — say commencing at India and 
ending in America. Think of this. W. H. Herndon. 

But alas, Parker had suffered a violent hemorrhage of the 
lungs, and had other things to think of. After a consultation 
of physicians he was told that his chance of recovery was but 
one in ten, and a trip to the West Indies and thence to Europe 
was decided on. He dropped a line to Herndon, "a poor 
scrawl with a pencil," ready to die if need be, laughing at the 
odds of nine to one. Letters from all over the nation, and be- 
yond the seas, poured in upon him, so richly ladened with hu- 
man sympathy and personal tribute that his heart was broken 
with delight. Mr. Herndon wrote out of a heavy heart: 

Springfield, 111., Jan. 25, 1859. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — I this moment received your very kind note, 
and for which I thank you. I do most sincerely, religiously 
regret your illness; and had I the power you should not 
suffer long; but should spring back into your boyhood's 
best — perfect health. I am not religious the way the 
world runs, but may I say this : God grant you a happy 
journey and a speedy recovery, so that you may come back 
to your native land invigorated, doing the people good who 
now curse you! May Heaven's great eye and loving heart 
M^atcli over you and pulse into you some of His vitality! 
Goodby till you return. Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

At Havana Parker wrote a letter to his church which has been 
printed with the title, "Theodore Parker's Experience as a 
Minister" — the best life of Parker that has so far been writ- 



LINCOLN ^S HERNDON 249 

ten, though he wrote, as he said, "standing up to his neck in 
the grave. ' ' Herndon followed him on his journey with solici- 
tude and many a silent prayer, reading every line about him 
and from him in the papers, as he traveled from Cuba to Lon- 
don, then to Paris, amid troops of friends, and thence to Italy 
to return no more. From afar he watched the changing scene 
in his native land, studying, planning books, writing scores of 
letters, while fighting death inch by inch. Towards the end 
he said — the true word of a wandering mind — ' ' There are 
two Theodore Parkers now: one is dying here in Italy; the 
other I have planted in America. He will live there and finisli 
my work. ' ' ^ 

II 

Of the ofifice life of Lincoln and Herndon much has been writ- 
ten, though the interest has naturally centered about the senior 
partner. Vivid glimpses of the two men in their personal re- 
lations have been given by those who were law students in the 
office, among whom were Elmer Ellsworth, afterwards colonel 
of the famous Zouaves, John H. Littlefield, and others. Their 
memories, like so much that has been written of Lincoln, were 
no doubt colored by later events, but they are none the less 
vivid and revealing. At Ottawa, during the campaign of 
1858, Lincoln met a Mr. Littlefield who asked that his brother 
might come to Springfield and study law. Lincoln replied : 
"All right, send him down and we will take a look at him." 
Mr. Littlefield writes : - 

"When I arrived at the law -office, I found what seemed to me 
the oddest mortal I had ever met. He was sitting down 
when I came in, and I should have said that he was about 
my height — five feet eight ; but when he rose to greet me, 
it was upon a pair of legs that lifted him to an altitude of 
six feet and four inches. "Glad to see you, young man," 
he said, giving me a cordial grasp of the hand. "Your 



1 Theodore Farker, by J. W. Chadwick, p. 371 (1900). 

- These reminiscences, published in Every Where, edited by Will 
Carlcton, February, 1902, are supplementary to those furnished by Mr. 
Littlefield for the Herndon and Weik bioj?,raphy (Vol. I, pp. 315-319). 



250 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

brother says you are a good deal like him, only more so : and 
that's enough. Arrange the preliminaries with 'Billy,' and 
go ahead." Billy was Lincoln's partner — William H. 
Herndon, an agreeable, scholarly man ; and I felt duly in- 
stalled, wathin a moment's time. It was not long before I 
found myself sitting at the same table with these two ex- 
ponents of the law — each engaged in study — while six 
pedal extremities of various sizes adorned the aforesaid 
table. ' ' We ought to concentrate enough magnetism, in this 
way, to run a whole court room," Herndon used to say. 
Lincoln was fifty; Herndon was forty; and I was twenty- 
five — a gradation of years that made one of them seem to 
me like a brother, and the other like a father: and they 
were certainly all these. 

I found myself studying Lincoln more and more, as the 
days went on. "The most unique man I ever knew," was 
my verdict, over and over again. He has been called awk- 
ward and ungainly, but this was not true. He was simply 
odd and original, in his own inimitable way. All the powers 
of Nature never could have made another one. His clothes 
were of good material, but never looked ' ' stylish : " he not 
only had, but was a style of his own. His tall silk hat was 
not always exquisitely groomed, and generally came down 
close to his ears. His old-fashioned calf -skin boots were not 
invariably up to the most exquisite polish ; but it was the 
man and not the clothes that occupied your thought. 

"You have no case; better settle:" I have heard him 
tell would-be clients, again and again. He would not ad- 
vocate a cause if he thought it was in the wrong. I used to 
think he was losing much business in that way; but found 
that he was very likely to get the other side of the case — 
thus having the incalculable advantage of being in the right. 
His practice extended throughout a large circuit, and he 
was always picking up new stories, which lost nothing by 
their terse and epigrammatic rendering. Often I have seen 
him look up from a case into which he was studying, with 
the remark, "This fellow reminds me of such and such a 
story ' ' — and the little anecdote always fitted, like a lady 's 
glove. 

Outside of his law-tomes, I never noticed that Lincoln 
was much of a reader. There were three books, however, 
in which he could have been thoroughly examined, and come 
out with honors : and those were the Bible, Skakespear, and 
Robert Burns 's poems. I frequently listened to him and 
Herndon arguing about the subject of slavery. Strange to 



LINCOLN'S HEENDON 251 

say, the man who was destined within five years to liberate 
millions of negroes by a stroke of his pen, was not nearly so 
fervid an Abolitionist as his partner. When, in 1860, he 
made his now famous speech at Cooper Institute, New York, 
he began to be whisperingly suggested for President; and, 
of course, we in the office began to build White House castles 
for him. I used to tell him he was sure of it. He would 
laugh indulgently, and say, ' ' John, I haven 't a chance in a 
hundred. ' ' But I kept on, and even got my discourse ready 
in case he was nominated. I asked him to hear it and criti- 
cise it for me. He steadfastly refused, till, one afternoon, 
he came into the office, planted himself in a corner, and said, 
"Well, John, I think I feel strong enough this afternoon to 
stand that speech." He still laughed at the idea of his be- 
ing President. 

During the campaign of 1856, Mr. Charles S. Zane came to 
Springfield and applied to become a law student in the office 
of ' ' Lincoln & Herndon, ' ' a firm in whose favor he had heard 
a great deal. Lincoln was out on the stump, but Mr. Herndon 
received the young man cordially, and straightway asked as to 
his politics. He rejoiced to learn that Mr. Zane was an anti- 
slavery man and a Republican, but advised him to keep out of 
politics until he had obtained a practice, and then to stay out 
in order to keep it. There was no opening in the office for a 
new student, and Mr. Zane entered another office ; but this was 
the beginning of a long and intimate friendship with Mr. Hern- 
don, whose niece he afterwards married. The following year 
Mr. Zane received a license to practice law, and opened an 
office upon the floor of the same building just above that oc- 
cupied by Lincoln & Herndon. At the request of the author 
Judge Zane has written the following reminiscences of the two 
partners as he knew them, particularly of Mr. Herndon, of 
whom he gives a singularly discriminating estimate both as a 
man and as a lawyer. He writes :^ 

Beginning the practice with few books, they cheerfully gave 
me the benefit of their library and sometimes of their advice. 



1 Ms. prepared by Judge Zane, May 18, 1910. Judge Zane is a 
resident of Salt Lake City, Utah, where he has long held an honored 
position on the bench. 



252 LIN COLN AND HEBNDON 

Under such circumstances I had the opportunity of observ- 
ing their ways, their treatment of clients of varied intelli- 
gence and behavior, and of learning to some extent their 
methods and of inferring their temperaments, dispositions 
and tendencies. I also heard them examine witnesses and 
argue questions of law and fact in court. After Mr. Lin- 
coln was inaugurated President, Mr. Herndon and I formed 
a partnership which continued about eight years. During 
that time my relations and associations with Mr. Herndon 
became more intimate. 

Mr. Herndon was about five feet nine inches in height 
and well proportioned; his movements were swift; he was a 
rapid thinker, writer and speaker, and usually reached his 
conclusions quickly and expressed them forcibly and pos- 
itively. His clients usually went away perfectly satisfied 
with his advice. He examined witnesses rapidly, and was 
not unfair, persistent, or tedious. He was always courteous 
and respectful to the court and to his professional brethren. 
He was popular as a man, as a lawyer, and as a public speak- 
er. It was easy to follow the thread of his argument. He 
was interesting and always secured the attention of his hear- 
ers. He was not always sufficiently careful as to his prem- 
ises and his data. In this he was unlike his famous partner. 
Mr. Lincoln as a reasoner w^as careful as to his premises and 
drew his inferences cautiously and with great clearness. It 
was largely this and his ability to fathom human motives 
that made him one of the wisest of statesmen. 

In their office and elsewhere the partners always treated 
each other kindly and with great respect. Mr. Lincoln 
usually called his partner Billy and Mr. Herndon always ad- 
dressed his partner as Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Herndon as a rule 
considered propositions and questions in the abstract, while 
Mr. Lincoln considered them more in the concrete. The lat- 
ter had great capacity for analysis and generalization. He 
was an adept in drawing reasonable inferences. As a rule 
they both did not engage in the trial of the same case. So 
far as I observed them, the best of feeling existed between 
them. Mr. Herndon was very charitable in judging the ac- 
tions and the conduct of his fellow men, and treated them 
with great magnanimity under all circumstances calling for 
an expression of that virtue. He never harbored ill-will or 
malice towards any man, and if he ever had an enemy I 
never knew it. 

He was regarded as a good offhand lawyer, and as a rule 
did not spend much time in the preparation of his cases ; in 



LINCOLN'S HERNDON 253 

that respect he was like Stephen T. Logan, Mr. Lincoln's 
former partner; he was wonderfully ready. Mr. Lincoln 
was more methodical and systematic. Mr. Ilerndon thought 
he was too careful in presenting his arguments to the court, 
that he sometimes spent too much time in drawing infer- 
ences in support of his propositions and in reasoning out his 
positions. 

Mr. Herndon was a member of a pro-slavery family, but 
when the Whig party to wliich he belonged dissolved in 1854 
on the slavery issue, he took his stand with the anti-slavery 
Whigs and Democrats, and afterwards helped to organize 
the Republican party and never faltered in its support. He 
loved justice and liberty, was tolerant of all beliefs and 
creeds, and believed that all men should be free without dis- 
tinction as to race or color. 
Another "Lincoln & Herndon" student in those years was 
Mr. Henry B. Rankin,^ who entered the office in the mid-fifties 
and made it his business home until the breaking out of the 
war. His parents had known the Greens, Rutledges. Hern- 
dons, Spears, and other old friends of Lincoln and Herndon 
at New Salem, and his mother had been a friend of Ann 
Rutledge. Though only a lad fresh from school when he 
entered the office, he was a keen observer of the student-life 
of the two men, their methods of work and processes of thought, 
— the slow intellectual movements of Lincoln, the familiar 
greatness of his thought and the plainness of his speech, con- 
trasting vividly with the swift and facile intellect of his part- 
ner, whose thought was a series of pictures and whose conver- 
sation was picturesque and many-colored. The contrast was 
indeed complete ; Herndon being a man careless of dress, of 
little personal dignity, of impetuous temper, addicted at times 

1 Mr. Eankin is a resident of Springfield, 111., and has been for 
many years — a man of rare insight and charm. But he has refused to 
be interviewed by Lincoln students hitherto because of their habitual 
injustice to Mr. Herndon, whom he knew intimately and well. He 
divined the greatness of Lincoln from the first, but he was also appre- 
ciative of the service rendered by the junior member of the firm. Among 
his treasures are a number of mementoes of his former tutors and friends, 
including the files of the Scndhern Literary Messenger which came to the 
oflSee. The author of this study is indebted to Mr. Rankin equally for 
his suggestions and his kindness. 



254 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

to barn-yard talk; while Lincoln was the personification of 
dignity, but did not know it. There was something exquisite 
in Lincoln, a native majesty and refinement of soul, which 
impressed young men deeply. Herndon was more familiar, 
companionable, and less reserved, more like a brother to the 
boys who wrestled with Blackstone and Kent. 

One feature of this partnership, not sufficiently emphasized, 
was the unconscious part which the junior member played in 
the education of his chief. Widely and variously read, Hern- 
don was a brilliant raconteur, and the cream of his reading 
poured forth in his office talk, while his partner gravely lis- 
tened and mused. Often Lincoln would stretch himself on 
the office cot, aweary of his toil, and say, "Now, Billy, tell me 
about the books;" and Herndon would discourse by the hour, 
ranging over history, literature, philosophy, and science. Out- 
side of the newspapers, and the political discussion of the day, 
Lincoln read very little, nor could his partner induce him to 
do so. He tried to read Emerson, whose essays and addresses 
Herndon so much admired, but the thought of the sage was too 
intangible and ethereal, until Emerson came down to earth, 
as Carlyle said, and wrote The Conduct of Life. Herndon 
reveled in German philosophy, while to Lincoln those thinkers, 
so far as he "tackled" them, seemed to be walking a tight rope 
in the top of the tent or reposing upon couches of ether. Wlien 
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass came out Lincoln under- 
took to read it, only to be repelled by its rapturous self-glori- 
fication and its vague, dreamy mysticism. With characteristic 
zest Herndon plunged into Darwin's Origin of Species 
when it appeared, but Lincoln refused to follow on the plea 
that the water was too deep. He was, however, interested in 
Vestiges of Creation, whose dogma of the universal reign 
of law fitted into his philosophy in which there were no acci- 
dents. He frequently perused the Westminster and Edin- 
burgh Reviews, which Herndon kept on the office table, but he 
could not enthuse over Herbert Spencer. Occasionally, when 
meditating an important speech, he would ask his partner for 
books, and Herndon, besides furnishing the books, would some- 



LINCOLN'S HERNDON 255 

times make a brief of his own reading on the subject, especially 
if it were a question of history. After this manner they 
worked together, comrades and friends, totally unlike but with 
the utmost good feeling, until Fame drove her chariot through 
the back office. 

No country law office ever had a finer intellectual air, and 
this, with its homely simplicity of fraternity, made it an in- 
spiring place for young men to study. Indeed, a new school 
of eloquence might have formed itself by the methods of Lin- 
coln — depending for its results not upon the subtlety of 
rhetoric, nor the magic of elocution, but claiming attention 
and assent by direct and honest appeals to the common under- 
standing. Both partners were gracious to young men, by 
nature as well as by political habit, and Herndon was particu- 
larly eager to enlist their interest in books of general culture. 
But by the qualities of their minds both men dealt with the 
weightier matters of the law, rather than with its ' ' mint, anise 
and cummin," and they were poor models in the conduct of 
an orderly office. 

Ill 

If Lincoln did not see the White House at the end of the 
road he was now traveling, he must have had dreams of it. 
His debates with Douglas had revealed him in one of his rarest 
parts — his command of the minds of men by his artless and 
unstudied oratory.^ Not that he neglected to study the ques- 
tions he debated; no counsel ever gave more attention to the 
points of his case ; but when once thought out, the argument 
moved with a familiar and effective freedom in its appeal to 
the common sense and native honesty of men. He was now 
freely spoken of for the highest office in the land, first in a 
whisper among his friends, and then in an ever-widening 
circle. To T. J. Pickett in April, 1859, he wrote, "I must in 
candor say that I do not think myself fit for the Presidency. ' ' 

1 See Blaine 's estimate of Lincoln as an orator, Twenty Years of 
Congress, Vol. I, p. 145; also that of I. N. Arnold, Life of Lincoln, 
pp. 139, 144 (1884). 



256 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



To others he wrote in the same way, intimating that he would 
rather be in the Senate than in the White House, but no one 
knew better than he the value of a becoming modesty. 

Once started, the movement spread rapidly and strongly. 
It was pointed out that he had all the requisites of an available 
man. He had not been in office to incur the jealousies oc pow- 
erful rivals ; he had made a valiant fight in his own State ; he 
was manly, able, and true; above all he was a man of the 
people, in reality not in pose, having been a rail-splitter, a 
flat-boatman, a grocery keeper — everything that could com- 
mend him to the heart of the masses. His manners, his dress, 
his stories, and his popular name of "Honest Old Abe," 
marked him as a man whose "running qualities" out-num- 
bered those of Harrison or Taylor. That Lincoln was aware 
of all this there can be no doubt, and his movements were as 
adroit as his words were modest : he laughed at the idea of 
his being President while in the very act of planning to bring 
it about. 

Naturally he was catechised as to his position on various 
public questions. Writing to Edward Wallace who had asked 
his views on the tariff, he said that he had formerly been a 
Henry Clay tariff Whig and had made more speeches on that 
subject than on any other. Nor had his views changed since. 
He held that if there could be a moderate, carefully adjusted 
protective tariff, so far acquiesced in as not to be a perpetual 
subject of political strife, squabbles, changes, and uncertain- 
ties, it would be well. Still, in his opinion, the revival of that 
question just now "will not advance the cause itself, or the 
man who revives it." One of the German leaders. Dr. Can- 
isius, asked him what he thought of the restriction upon natur- 
alization recently adopted in Massachusetts, and whether he 
favored a fusion of all the opposition elements in the next 
canvass. He replied, that, as to tlie restrictions, he was unal- 
terably opposed to them, and as to fusion, he would not lower 
"the Republican standard even by a hair's breadth." His 
astute frankness won confidence, and while he did not parry 
issues he did insist that attention be kept fixed on the one 
great issue before the nation. 



LINCOLN'S HERNDON 257 

Once more, in September, 1859, Lincoln left his office for 
polities, at the call of his party in Ohio, speaking at Columbus 
and at Cincinnati. Douglas had passed through the State 
before him in behalf of the Democrats, and Lincoln was eager 
to reply to his old foe, which he did in two of his best orations, 
free of the personal feeling which in the heat of the Illinois 
contest had found its way into the debates. Besides, Douglas 
had recently written "a copyright essay" for Harper's Maga- 
zine expatiating at length and learnedly upon the sanctity and 
efficacy of "popular sovereignty," and this gave Lincoln an 
opportunity to restate his views in apt and epigrammatic 
fashion. At Columbus, after denying that he had any right 
or inclination to interfere with slavery in the States where it 
existed, or that he was in favor of negro suffrage — ' ' a vile 
conception" — he took the essay of Douglas for his text, along 
with the remark of the Senator in his Memphis speech, that, 
in a fight between a negro and a crocodile, he would be on 
the side of the negro. At Cincinnati the following evening 
he spoke in an entirely different manner, it being the first 
time in his life, he began, that he had appeared "before an 
audience in so great a city." His speech was addressed, not 
without playful irony, to the Kentuckians whom Douglas had 
said he desired to shoot at over the river to the destruction of 
domestic peace. This gave novelty to liis effort, so that his 
arguments, although in no sense new, wore another guise. 

These two speeches, at once timely and effective, weighed 
heavily in the balance in Ohio that year, while at the same 
time they called attention to the orator. His relation of good- 
fellowship with his audiences, his humor and tact in face of 
interruptions, his homely imagery and catchy phrases, were 
far-reaching in effect. These speeches were afterwards pub- 
lished in a volume with the debates and sold in editions aggre- 
gating many thousands of copies. Some of his pithy sayings 
may illustrate the new garbs in which he clothed old argu- 
ments : 

Now, what is Judge Douglas's popular sovereignty? It is, 
as a principle, no other than that, if one man chooses to 



258 LIN COLN AND HERNDON 

make a slave of another man, neither that man nor anybody 
else has a right to object. 

He proceeds to assume, without proving it, that slavery 
is one of those little, unimportant, trivial matters which are 
of just about as much consequence as the cjuestion would 
be, whether my neighbor should raise horned cattle or plant 
tobacco; that there is no moral question about it, l)ut that 
it is altogether a matter of dollars and cents; that when a 
new Territory is opened for settlement, the first man who 
goes into it may plant there a thing which, like the Canada 
thistle or some other of those pests of the soil, cannot be 
dug out by the millions of men who come thereafter. 

I suppose the institution of slavery really looks small 
to him. He is so put up by nature that a lash upon his 
back would hurt, but a lash upon anybody else's back does 
not hurt him. That is the build of the man. . . . Judge 
Douglas ought to remember that . . . while he is put 
up in that way a good many are not. 

There was some inconsistency in saying that the Dred 
Scott decision was right, and saying, too, that the people 
of the Territory could lawfully drive slavery out again. 
When all the trash . . . was cleared aw^ay from it — 
all the chaff fanned out of it, it was a bare absurdity — no 
less than that a thing may he lawfully driven away from 
where it has a lawful right to he. 

That is all. It is a mere matter of policy; there is a 
perfect right according to interest to do just as you please — 
. when this is done, where this doctrine prevails, the miners 
and sappers will have formed public opinion for the slave- 
trade. They will be ready for Jeff Davis and Stephens 
and other leaders of that company. 

These popular sovereigns are at this work; blowing out 
the moral lights around us ; teaching that the negro is no 
longer a man but a brute ; that the Declaration has nothing 
to do with him; that he ranks with the crocodile and the 
reptile ; that man, with body and soul, is a matter of dollars 
and cents. 

In many of the Slave States . . . you are trying to 
show that slavery existed in the Bible times by divine ordi- 
nance. Now, Douglas is wiser than you, for your own benefit, 
upon that subject. Douglas knows that whenever you estab- 
lish that slavery was right by the Bible, it will occur that 
that slavery was the slavery of the white man — of men 
without reference to color — and he knows very well that 
you may entertain that idea in Kentucky as much as you 



LINCOLN^S HERNDON 259 

please, but you will never win any Northern support upon it. 
I say that there is room enough for us all to be free, and 
that it not only does not wrong the white man that the 
negro should be free, but it positively wrongs the mass of 
the white men that the negro should be enslaved; that the 
mass of white men are really injured by the effects of slave 
labor in the vicinity of the fields of their own labor. 

Rumors that ' ' the tall Sucker ' ' was an aspirant for the White 
House had traveled apace, and, after reading his speeches in 
Ohio, the leaders of the East wanted to see and hear him. 
Early in October Lincoln "looked pleased, not to say tickled," 
as Herndon puts it, when he came into the office with a letter 
inviting him to speak in New York. 

' ' Billy, I am invited to deliver a lecture in New York. Shall 
I go?" he said, tossing the letter on the table. 

"By all means," said his partner; "and it is a good opening, 
too. Go, Mr. Lincoln; make your best effort. Speak with 
your usual lucidity and thoroughness." 

"If you were in my fix, what subject would you choose?" 
asked Lincoln, who, apart from politics, would as soon take 
for his theme "The Beautiful" as anything else, when he had 
almost no sense of it. 

"Wliy, a political one," replied his partner quickly, "that 
is your forte;" for Herndon dreaded the thought of a lecture, 
remembering the dismal failure of his friend in that field. 
Lincoln wrote in response to the invitation, that he would 
avail himself of it the coming February, provided he might be 
permitted to make a political speech in case he did not find 
time to prepare one of another kind. Whereupon he set to 
work preparing his speech, which cost him more toil than any 
other speech of his life, and the march of events came to his aid. 

Late in October news flashed over the wires which set the 
nation. North and South, afire. John Brown,^ a zealot of 

1 Life and Letters of John Brown, by F. B. Sanborn (1910). This 
is by far the best account of Brown, his personal history and intellectual 
qualities, his plans, dreams, and desperate endeavors; the author being 
implicated with him in his undertaking. See liecollections of Seventy 
Years, by F. B. Sanborn, pp. 187-252 (1909). For Mr. Parker's cou- 



260 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



the Cromwellian type, had entered Virginia with two sons and 
a small band, with hope of inciting the slaves to insurrection. 
He had been active in the Kansas wars, where one of his sons 
had been shot by a clerical champion of slavery from Missouri, 
and where at the point of the rifle he had forced a band of 
ruffians to kneel and pray, probably for the first time In their 
lives. Exalted by his enthusiasm, yet acting with the coolest 
intrepidity and sagacity, he seized Harper's Ferry, where 
there was a Federal arsenal, and called the slaves to freedom 

.inspired by the notion, long current, that the slaves were 

restless, discontented, and ready to rebel, awaiting only an 
opportunity and a leader to break out in efficacious revolt. 
It was not the first instance in history in which a reformer, 
stung to frenzy by towering wrong, erred by attributing to 
those whom he would help feelings to which they were strang- 
ers. Valiantly, but in vain, he appealed to the slaves to follow 
his leadership. No slaves answered his call, and he was soon 
surrounded, with his party; his two sons were shot, and he, 
fighting with almost unearthly courage, was wounded and 
overpowered. 

Not only Virginia, but the w^hole South, was wild witli panic 
and rage, while in the North there was much sjinpathy for 
Brown, disguising itself under faint disapprobation. All along 
the leaders of the South had charged upon Abolitionists that 
they sought to bring about the instant and immediate eman- 
cipation they demanded by incendiary methods; and now 
their charge seemed to be not M^thout ground. Abolition 
tracts were freely scattered throughout the Slave States ; pic- 
tures printed upon cheap handkerchiefs, such as might be 
easily circulated among the slaves, were sent — the only effect 
of which, whatever may have been the object, was to instigate 
insurrection. Of course, Southern politicians held the Re- 
publican party responsible not only for these tactics, but for 
the John Brown invasion. And, of course, that was not true ; 
but even in ordinary times when partisan rancor enters reason 
and fairness take wings. 

nection with Brown, see Theodore Parker, by J. W. Chadwick, pp. 319- 
345, 365 (1900), and by Sanborn in the latest volume of Parker's Works 
(1910). 



LI NCOLN'S HERNDON 261 

What Lincoln, in the recesses of his heart, thought of old 
John Brown, we are left to conjecture; but we know how he 
refuted the charge that his party, as a party, was behind that 
picturesque but fatuous foray. In December he went to Kan- 
sas, a stronghold of Douglasism, lured by the hope of winning 
its hard-fisted, self-reliant frontier citizens from the insidious 
dogma of "popular sovereignty," with which they were in- 
fatuated. He spoke at Elwood, Doniphan, Troy, Atchison, 
and twice at Leavenworth, and was everywhere received with 
ovations which astonished and gratified him. Only a few ran- 
dom jottings of his speeches in Kansas have been preserved ; ^ 
but happily one of them was reported, though it has been 
strangely neglected and forgotten. On December 2nd, the 
day that John Brown was executed,- he spoke at Troy, and 
this speech should be better known -.^ 

You people of Kansas will soon have to bear a part in the 
national government — which has always had, has i^S/iei- 
and must continue to have, a policy regarding slavery. Such 
a policy must of necessity take one of two directions. It 
must deal with negro slavery either as wrong or as not 
wrong. In our early national policy, indicated by the pro- 
hibition of slavery in the Northwest Territory, and by the 



1 Complete Works of Lincoln, by Nieolay and Hay, Vol. I, p. 585 
(1894). 

2 John Brown was hanged at Charlestown, Va., Dec. 2, 1858, and met 
hie fate with martyr calmness. His bearing impressed even his enemies. 
— Life of Governor Wise, by J. S. Wise (1899). The consolations of 
religion, tendered him by a pro-slavery clerg^^man, he declined, probably 
remembering the clerical filibuster who shot his son in Kansas. Among 
the Virginia militia who surrounded the scaffold was John Wilkes Booth —^ 
the assassin of Lincoln — who was an actor in Eichmond, and-tgft hisuie- 
ater to join Company F for that day. — Life of Brown, by F. B. Sanborn, 
p. 626 (1910). Whatever may be thought of John Brown's methods, he 
must have been an unusual man to have won the sympathy and aid 
of such men as Parker, Emerson, S. G. Howe, Gerritt Smith, Stearns, 
Sanborn, and others. In the war that ensued his soul went marching on 
in a battle hymn. 

3 D. W. Wilder, the historian of Kansas, was present and hoard the 
speech, reporting it to his old school friend, F. B. Sanborn ; by whose 
kindness it is here used. For Wilder 's memories of Tjincoln in Kansas, 
see Life of Brown, by F. B. Sanborn, pp. 18.3-4 (1910). 



262 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



declaration against the foreign slave-trade, the idea must 
have been that slavery was a wrong, only to be tolerated 
because it was actually present. But now a new policy has 
come in, based on the idea that slavery is not wrong, and the 
Kansas-Nebraska Act, under which you have been living, 
has applied this new policy. How do you like it? You 
have tested it for the first time on a large scale, and here 
are your results : 

Five years of conflict almost continuous, with fire and 
slaughter; four or five State constitutions, and at last one 
that admits you to the Union as a Free State. After all the 
difficulties that you know so well, you will not get what we, 
of Illinois, got in that old Northwest Territory, without any 
difficulty to speak of. 

Look, then, at these two policies as they actually worked, 
and tell me, if, after all, the good old way of Washington 
and Jefferson was not the better of the two ? For the new 
policy has proved false to all its fine promises, to the nation 
and to you, its victims. To the nation it promised the end 
of the slavery agitation, and that speedily — but just the 
contrary has happened. To you it promised to give a greater 
control of your own local affairs ; yet, by actual trial, daily 
and yearly, you have had less control of them, and have been 
more bedeviled by outside interference than any other Amer- 
ican people ever were. This new scheme of "popular sov- 
ereignty," had it been honest, would have given you the 
right of choosing your own Governors — a very small right. 
For if there is any reason why State privileges should not 
be given at once to a Territory, it must be because the pop- 
ulation is small. But, if while your numbers were few 
you were fit to do some things and not to do others, it must 
have been the more important things that you were unfit 
to do, while you might do the smaller things. Now in for- 
bidding you to elect your own Governor, while allowing you 
to plant negro slavery here, the only just reason must be 
that it was a small thing to plant slavery here, and a much 
bigger thing to elect Governors. Was it so in fact ? 

Which have you found to be the greater matter of the 
two? Here you have had five Governors chosen for you, 
and it is very doubtful if you who hear me can remember 
the names of half of them. They are gone, hardly leaving 
a single trace in Kansas, or having done a single thing that 
can help or hurt you in the vast, indefinite future. That, 
my friends, is about the size of your Governor question. 
But now look at your slavery question. If your first set- 



LINCOLN >S HERNDON 263 

tiers, believing slavery all right, while you think it all wrong, 
had got 5,000 slaves planted here on your free soil, you 
never could have got your free constitution. The owners 
of these 5,000 slaves would have been as good as the rest of 
you, and, being rich, would perhaps have had more influence. 
You would not wish to destroy their property ; and would not 
know what to do with this human property if they were 
set free. All the rest of your property would not have paid 
for sending 5,000 free negroes to Liberia; but you could 
have got rid of 500 Governors, not to mention five, much 
more easily. Which then is the bigger and safer question, 
the slave issue or the Governor issue? 

So much for my Kansas hearers. But I have hearers 
from Missouri, too, this night; and I have a few words for 
you of Missouri. You say that we have made this slave 
issue more prominent of late years, and are to blame for 
that. We deny it. It is more prominent, but we say it 
was you who made it so. The good old policy of Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, and Henry Clay was not good enough for 
you. You must have a change of policy: Slavery must be 
called right instead of wrong. We say the only way of 
treating human slavery is as a wrong. You don 't like that, 
and you don't like the Kansas situation ; well, if you do not, 
why not go back to the good old policy ? But you say our 
success as Republicans will destroy our sacred Union. How 
so? Do we Republicans declare against the Union? Not 
at all. It is you who say: "If these black Republicans 
choose a President, we won't stand it;" you will then break 
up the Union. What ! Do you really think it right to 
destroy it rather than see it administered as Waslnngton 
and Jefferson did ? You have elected your Presidents and 
we submitted ; if we elect one, our duty will be to make you 
submit. 

Isn 't that fair ? Old John Brown thought slavery wrong, i 
as we do ; he attacked contrary to law, and it availed him 
nothing before the law that he thought himself right. He 
has just been hanged for treason against the State of Vir- 
ginia; and we cannot object, though he agreed with us in 
calling slavery wrong. Now if you undertake to destroy 
the Union contrary to law, if you commit treason against 
the United States, our duty will be to deal with you as John 
Brown has been dealt with. We shall try to do our duty. 

Surely this was plain speech ; but it showed what Lincoln in a 
calm and level mood thought of the scene, local and national, 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



as it lay spread out before him. Two weeks later we find 
Herndon writing his last letter to Theodore Parker, who was 
in Rome and reported to be improving in health, but was in 
fact still deeper in the grave. He, too, has somewhat to say- 
about John Brown, in whose wild and daring escapade lie sees 
a red signal of civil war, while for the first time in his letters 
he names Lincoln among the possibilities for the Presidency. 
It is, in its way, a remarkable letter : 

Springfield, 111., Dec. 15, 1859. 
Friend Parker. 

Dear Sir : — It has been a long time since I wrote to you, 
and though I have not done so I have not forgotten you. 
I, in spirit, was with you on the Antilles, where the great 
hero broke the chains of his people; was with you in the 
Alps — in Switzerland ; and now I follow you to Rome, 
where Brutus 's dagger gleamed bright against the despotism 
of Caesar. Though this is true, I am still amidst such a 
glaring, heavy, hot and angry despotism that the blood runs 
cold, and almost crystallizes. Such a heavy, haughty des- 
potism the world never saw. We are verging towards a 
Ci\al "War, or a peaceable disunion. I do not want to see or 
feel either, but voice and arm are too weak to stay the tide. 
What God's providence announces in the logic of sweeping 
events, I cannot control, and have no arrogant desire to do 
so. ' ' Let God 's will be done, ' ' and I am content. 

Since your departure from America much has been done, 
that makes the heart hope, and much that forces the soul 
to despair. All through the South the "fanatics" are 
driving out all good men. Let this, too, go on uncontrolled ; 
it mil force on the indolent, indifferent, there, as well as 
North, the necessary laws of human thought — the ideas of 
human rights; it will drive good men northward; it is 
Nature's pro^^dence, wiser, too, than our little philosophies 
and logics; and it will bring on the great issue, high as 
heaven, as deep as hell. 

John Brown's raid in Virginia has somewhat awoke us 
to the "irrepressible conflict" — has roused us to the great- 
ness and grandeur of America's coming events; his death 
has sent a thrill of horror through the American world. His 
deeds are sweeping from the great tall heads to the mass of 
our people. You have no idea of the influence of John 
Brown's acts. We do not approve the deeds, though we 
Vieeply sympathize with the man and his motives. Poor old 



LINCOLN >S HERNDON 265 

John Brown : he was good and great and is immortal — will 
live amidst the world's gods and heroes through all the 
infinite ages. "Z still live'' of John Brown will ever ring 
along heaven's blue domes of the future. As the Masons 
say, "So mote it be." 

Wendell Phillips made a most glorious speech in Beech- 
er's church^ a few weeks before the execution of Brown: 
it was polished, chaste, eloquent ; it was a living thing, 
breathing out fire and defiance. Corwin says it was the finest 
thing he ever heard ; he was on the stand at the time Phillips 
spoke. Phillips has made one or two other speeches on 
John Brown and his times. His speeches, I understand, are 
for the present rolled up — their publication delayed on 
account of the insolvency of the Boston firm who were to 
publish the speeches. I am sorry for this, for I wanted 
to read and study them. To show you the interest felt in 
John Brown, no less than three biographies are proposed 
to be issued. So mote that be, too. 

Whilst I am speaking of books, let me say that the world 
is "asleep" on the publication of good new books. Europe 
is no better in this particular than America. I understand 
that Emerson is soon to publish a new work called "The 
Conduct of Life." I hope, I know, it will be good. 

Now for squabbling politics. There are several good men 
spoken of for President — among them are Seward, Chase, 
Banks, Lincoln, Bates, Bell, etc. I have a letter now in 
my hand from Philosopher Greeley : he says he is for Bates 
of Missouri, and Read of Pennsylvania. Greeley is getting 
quite conservative : he is a timid man ; he is willing to 
agitate for an idea during its abstract state, but he shudders 
when it is about to concrete itself amidst living events, hu- 
man conditions, social, religious, or political. Pie tcill not 
do for a great leader of America's present events : he vnW do 
to lead in small and unimportant events, political or social ; 
but not where absolute principles will squeeze out blood, if 
necessary, to get themselves applied ; he is fine for theoretic 
principles — not heaven-high ones applied. Greeley is, 
however, an honest man and I still like him somewhat. 



1 It should not be inferred from this that Beecher approved of the 
methods of John Brown. Beecher -was not, strictly speaking, an Aboli- 
tionist, but .a constitutional anti-slavery reformer of the school of Lin- 
coln. — Henry Ward Beecher, by Lyinan Abbott, pp. 1.52-194 (IQO.^). But 
Phillips had been denied an audience room in the city, and Beecher, as 
a friend of free speech, threw open the doors of Plymouth Church. 
— Life of Beeoher, by J. H. Barrows, pp. 191-2 (189.3). 



206 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

The Republicans in Congress are grinding off the flesh 
from their knee caps, attempting to convince the Southern 
men that we are cowards. We are cowards, that is, our 
Representatives are. But here, friend, if a man makes me 
bite the dust to get what is my due, or to get a favor, when 
I do arise from my humiliation I rise with clenched fists, 
hitting my tyrant with a quick back-slap. This is the law 
of our nature, and look out, distant in the future, for this 
law in its application. I feel like I wanted to scorch off 
the disgrace of our kneeling, whining cowardice. The peo- 
ple must be educated. 

The South is now catechizing the North. To this ques- 
tion, ' ' What is the true end of man ? " it stands and shiver- 
ingly answers, "The chief end of man is to support the 
nigger institution, and to apologize to despots!" I might 
turn out to be a coward, if I were in Congress : but T think, 
if I were asked that question, I should say, "Resistance to 
nigger-drivers — individual tyrants — is fealty to man and 
obedience to God." The Senators are all on their knees. 
So are the Representatives. Let them shrive themselves 
there, and mankind will avenge the humiliation in the future. 
This is God's constant mode of operation. The race will 
pull the trigger which the individual refused to touch. God 
will cry to the race, "Fire," and it will fire. We will then 
apologize upward. 

Senator Douglas is backing down to the command of the 
slave driver, and Kellogg, of Illinois, is after Greeley and 
Douglas for their conspiracy to beat Lincoln. Let the facts 
come. Human history is a great magnet held up and 
swung over facts, drawing them up, sticking them logically 
amidst the world's great and small events. Garrison, I 
fear, is not doing much. He is, however, always firm, and 
as you once said to me, "I have no more fear of Garrison 
than of the shrinkage of the world's granite ribs, holding 
us up." The North is gradually being educated in ideas 
and in arms. Instinct and nature drive them to prepare. 
I want peace ; but if God says otherwise — "so mote it be." 
Are you writing your great book in Rome? How are you 
and how does old Rome look? I hope you are well. 

Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

IV 

On February 25, 1860, Lincoln arrived in New York City to 
deliver his speech at the Cooper Institute. It was Saturday, 



LINCOLN'S HERNDON 267 

and he spent the whole day in revising and retouching his 
address, for he was a believer in the inspiration of last mo- 
ments. On the Sabbath he attended worship at Plymouth 
Church, and after the sermon dined with Henry Ward Beecher 
at the house of a friend.^ While walking alone in the afternoon 
he looked in upon a mission Sunday-school where he was 
invited to talk to the children who, whenever he made a move- 
ment to stop cried out, " Go on ! Oh, do go on ! " As he rose to 
depart, the leader, asking the name of his visitor, was sur- 
prised to hear the answer, ' ' Abraham Lincoln of Illinois. ' ' ^ 
On Monday he wandered about the city to see the sights, and 
in a book-store, where he stopped to get a book ordered by 
Herndon, he met George Bancroft. When the committee 
waited upon him to escort him to the Institute, they found him 
dressed in a sleek and shining suit of new black, creased and 
wrinkled from having been packed too closely and too long 
in his little valise. Whether he was more abashed by his new 
surroundings or his mussed suit, it was hard to tell. 

When he reached the Institute he faced "the intellect and 
culture" of the city, as the Tribune said, David Dudley Field 
escorting him to the platform, where William Cullen Bryant 
presided. Horace Greeley, former Governor King, and other 
notable men sat beside him. For the first few moments, as 
he afterwards said, he was sure that nobody saw anything but 
the wrinkles in his clothes, and his recalcitrant coat collar 
which flew up every time he made a gesture. But he soon 
forgot himself and his address was, as well in its character as 
in its results, one of the most important of his career — though 
some still agree with the orator himself that his speech at 
Peoria, in 1854, was his best. Owing to a heavy snow-storm 
the Cooper Institute was not full, and the audience was so busy 

1 Life of Beecher, by J. H. Barrows, pp. 245-6. After the Cooper 
Institute address the following evening, Lincoln was Beecher 's candidate 
for the "Presidency. — Henry Ward Beecher, by Lyman Abbott, p. 222 
(1903). It may be added that the story, so often told, that Lincoln 
spent a night with Beecher in his home during the dark days of the war, 
is a legend. "I 

2 Life of Lincoln, by J. G. Holland, p. 213 (1866). 



268 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

taking his measure that it quite forgot to applaud. Lincoln 
had foreseen this, and his address was a calm, lucid, searching 
survey of the great issue in all its branches, intended to appeal 
to the mind of educated man whose interest was keenly alive.^ 
As such it was a model, thorough without affectation of learn- 
ing, exact without the usual stiffness of dates and details, often 
compressing into a single plain and simple sentence the 
thought and research of years. 

For his text he chose the words of Senator Douglas : ' ' Our 
fathers, when they framed the government under which we 
live, understood this question just as well, and even better, 
than we do now. ' ' Since all indorsed these words, his inquiry 
was as to what understanding the fathers had of the slavery 
issue, how they dealt with it, and what they meant should be 
the end of it. Then followed an elaborate historical argument, 
which amounted to a demonstration, showing that the fathers 
regarded slavery as a wrong and had placed it, as they thought, 
in course of ultimate extinction. Seldom has there been a 
more lucid exegesis of the Constitution or a more effective 
application of its principles and spirit to the affairs of a later 
time. Nor has there ever been a more earnest exhortation to 
the nation to return to the landmarks set up by the fathers of 
the repubKc. 

Let all who believe that "our fathers who framed the gov- 
ernment under which we live, understood this question just 
as well, and even better, than we do now," speak as they 
spoke, and act as they acted upon it. This is all Republi- 
cans ask — all Republicans desire — in relation to slavery. 
As those fathers marked it, so let it be again marked, as an 



1 Tor the story of this speech, and the speech itself with valuable 
notes carefully edited, see Abraham Lincoln, by G. H. Putman (1909) 
Mr. Horace White remarks: "1 chanced to open the other day his 
Cooper Institute speech. This is one of the few printed speeches that 
I did not hear him deliver in person. As I read the concluding pages of 
that speech the conflict of opinion that preceded the conflict of arms 
then sweeping upon the country like an approaching solar eclipse, 
seemed prefigured like a chapter of the Book of Fate." — Lincoln in 
1854, pp. 21-22 (1908). Greeley said that he never listened to a greater 
speech, although he had heard several of Webster's best. 



LINCOLN'S HEBNDON 269 

evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected 
only because of and so far as its actual presence among us 
makes that toleration and protection a necessity. Let all 
the guaranties those fathers gave it, be, not grudgingly, but 
fully and fairly maintained. . . . All they (the South) 
ask we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right ; all 
we ask they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. 
... It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great 
Confederacy shall be at peace and in harmony, one with 
another. Let us Republicans do our part to have it so. Even 
though much provoked, let us do nothing through passion 
and ill temper. Even though the Southern people will not 
so much as listen to us, let us calmly consider their demands, 
and yield to them, if, in our deliberate view of our daty, we 
possibly can. . . . I^et us have faith that right makes 
might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our 
duty as we understand it. 

Here was the conciliatory spirit of the Henry Clay Whig, a 
lover of the Union willing to compromise everything except 
the moral wrong of slavery; not the Abolitionist, still less an 
advocate of a mystical ' ' higher law. ' ' As has been true of all 
great reformers, at least in the earlier stages of their careers, 
his ideals were more frequently in the past than in the future, 
and he made plea for a pruning of gross abuses, a reverting 
to the healthy simplicity of by-gone times. Like Shibli Baga- 
rang in the George Meredith story of The Shaving of Shag- 
pat — published in 1856 — he proposed a friendly and con- 
servative shave of the Slave Despot. True to the nature of 
tyranny, the Slave Power waxed exceeding angry, until its 
face was as red as a berry in a bush ; but when at last Shagpat 
had to be thoroughly and radically shaved, our Shibli was 
equal to the task. 

The New York papers printed the speech in full, Bryant, 
of the Evening Post, expressing the wish that he had more 
material so interesting with which to fill his columns. The 
Tribune, as it explained, omitted only "the tones, the gestures, 
the kindling eye and the mirth-provoking look" — which is 
news, indeed, for in its printed form there is no glint of mirth. 
In his speeches in New England, whither he went to visit his 
son Robert, then at Phillips Exeter Academy, he improvised at 



270 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

the moment on the theme of the Cooper Institute address, 
with repeated emphasis upon the fact that John Brown was 
not a Republican, but a lonely, misguided enthusiast. He mixed 
a deal of inelegant anecdote with dashes of local color, espe- 
cially at Hartford where he was induced to take sides in a 
strike then in progress in the local shoe factories ; and it was 
like him to take the side of the workers.^ On the whole, such 
scraps as remain of his speeches made on this tour reconcile 
us to the fact that they were not reported in full. 

But he was now, in a very real sense, a national figure. Men 
were inquiring about him, and his Illinois friends urged him 
to give the word and let them set to work for his nomination 
for the Presidency. "What's the use of talking about me 
whilst we have such men as Seward, Chase, and others?" he 
said to Jesse Fell, who sought data for a biography. Finally 
he admitted that he would like to be President, "but there is 
no such good luck in store for me, ' ' he said. ' ' Besides, there 
is nothing in my early history that would interest you or any- 
body else." Fell pleaded, and for his benefit Lincoln wrote 
that remarkable "Autobiography," describing himself as de- 
rived from one of the "second families," and his story as a 

1 Surely the superlative absurdity is the attempt to make Lincoln 
appear in the guise of a Socialist. Even his prediction about the danger 
to the country from the power of "corporations" and capitalists, rests 
upon a hypothetical letter which has not been produced — though, in 
view of the inflated values and wild extravagance of war times, he would 
have been justified in making it. — Social and Industrial Conditions Dur- 
ing the War, by E. D. Fite (1910). Carl Marx divined in him a "single- 
minded son of toil" who, in any contest between man and dollars, 
would take the side of men. — Life of Marx, by J. Sparge, p. 225 (1910). 
But Socialists have no monopoly of that feeling. Lincoln's words about 
the rights of property, and capital, make ridiculous the effort of that 
cult to claim him. He looked forward to the time when no slave would 
return to unrequited toil, and each family would own its own home- 
stead, subject to no lien, except taxes. — Abraham Lincoln, by E. H. 
Browne, Vol. II, p. 638 (1907). His vigorous individualism was, how- 
ever, always balanced by a feeling of human solidarity, and both were 
transfigured by that social imagination, so marked a trait in him, out of 
which was born his mystical and prophetic vision of the union. — Abraham 
Lincoln, by H. B. Binns, pp. 144, 352 (1907). 



LINCOLN'S HERNDON 271 

page torn from "the short and simple annals of the poor." 
At last, urged by his friends — Davis, Swett, Logan, Palmer, 
Herndon, and others — he let his name be used for the liighest 
office, and was quietly occupied during the spring with that 
wire-pulling at which he was so adept. Once in the race, he 
was as vigilant as he had been reluctant, and left no stone 
unturned, even writing to other States in quest of delegates.^ 
He went, as a spectator, to the State convention at Decatur on 
May 9th, and was given a rousing indorsement. When a ban- 
ner was borne in, inscribed "Abraham Lincoln, the rail Can- 
didate for President in 1860," supported by two weather- 
beaten fence rails decorated with ribbons, ' ' from a lot of 3,000 
made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks in the Sangamon 
Bottom, in the year 1830," the convention went wild. Of 
course, Lincoln had to make a speech, and the State delega- 
tion, the list of names having been approved by him, was 
instructed to "use all honorable means" to secure him the 
honor. 

One week later the National Convention met at Chicago, in a 
large two-story frame building, called, without apparent reason 
or propriety, the "Wigwam," erected for the purpose at the 
corner of Market and Lake streets. This was the first time 
any great party had convened its national assembly in the 
West, and it was a notable gathering. Even the Times, the 
Douglas organ, complimented a body which contained such 
men as Evarts, Thurlow Weed, Greeley, Giddings, Ashmun, 

1 Among those to whom he wrote was the notorious Mark Delahay 
of Kansas, offering to furnish $100 to bear his expenses to Chicago in 
case he was appointed a delegate. These letters were given in the 
Herndon and Weik biography (Vol. II, pp. 68-9), but the name of 
Delahay was omitted. Years later Senator Ingalls refused to believe 
that Lincoln had any dealings with Delahay until he saw the actual 
letters, and even then he could hardly believe his eyes. After he was 
elected .Lincoln consulted Delahay about appointments in Kansas, ap- 
pointing Delahay himself Surveyor-General. — Life of John Brown, by 
F. B. Sanborn, p. 184 (1910). Lincoln was not squeamish in such mat- 
ters, nor was he always a good judge of men. It is probable, however, 
that he did not know what manner of man Delahay was, for he had no 
ear for local political gossip. 



272 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

Wilmot, Corwin, Blair, Andrews, Boutwell, and others of 
equal fame. In these despites, it was soon evident that there 
would be the usual display of electioneering arts, the usual 
bargaining, and more than the usual uproar.^ Seward was 
the most eminent man of the party and its natural candidate, 
and his friends, led by the astute and experienced Thurlow 
Weed, seemed to have everything their own way. Lincoln had 
only the support of Illinois, and even some of the Illinois dele- 
gation personally preferred Seward ; ^ but he had a chance if 
Seward did not win on the first ballot. 

Lincoln headquarters were at the Tremont House, five blocks 
from the Wigwam, and his friends worked "like nailers," 
/ as Oglesby said. David Davis, Stephen T. Logan, Leonard 
Swett, Norman Judd, Jesse K. Dubois were leaders, with W. 
H. Herndon as the personal representative of his partner. 
They opened a political huckster shop and began to dicker for 
votes, having the aid of Greeley, who was in favor of ' ' anybody 
to beat Seward," and he thought Edward Bates, of Missouri, 
was the man to do it. Herndon and Koerner did much to 
argue him out of that notion in favor of Lincoln. By dextrous 
trades and promises the Lincoln men secured the Indiana 
delegation, while the Seward forces were parading with ban- 
ners and bands. Dubois telegraphed to Lincoln that they 
could get the Cameron delegates from Pennsylvania if they 
might promise Cameron a cabinet position. Lincoln replied: 
"I authorize no bargains and will be bound by none." Not 
content with this, he sent a copy of the Missouri Democrat to 

1 There are many descriptions of the Chicago convention. For a 
contemporary account, see Conventions of 1860, by Murat Halstead; for 
the workings of the platform committee, see Reminiscences, by Schurz, 
Vol. II, pp. 175-86 (1909); for the German influence, see Memoirs of 
Koerner, Vol. II, pp. 84-93 (1909); for the causes of the defeat of 
Seward, see Autobiography of Weed (1884), and Life of Seward, by P. 
Bancroft, Vol. I, pp. 520-45 (1900); and the biographies of Lincoln, 
especially Arnold and Whitney who were present. Seward men attrib- 
uted their downfall to Greeley, who had a grudge against their candi- 
date, but Greeley said that his influence was exaggerated. — Eecollections 
of a Busy Life, p. 390 (1869). 

2 Lincoln, and Men of War Times, by A. K. McClure, p. 23. 



LINCOLN'S HERNDON 273 

Herndon with three extracts from Seward's speeches marked, 
and on the margin of which he had written, "I agree with 
Seward's 'irrepressible conflict,' but do not agree with his 
'higher law' doctrine. Make no contracts that ivill hind me." 

Everybody was mad, of course. . . . What was to be done ? 
The bluff Dubois said: "Damn Lincoln!" The polished 
Swett said, in mellifluous accents : " I am very sure if Lin- 
coln was aware of the necessities — " The critical Logan 
expectorated viciously, and said, "The main difficulty with 
Lincoln is — " Herndon ventured: "Now, friend, I'll 
answer that. ' ' But Davis cut the Gordian knot by brush- . 
ing all aside with: "Lincoln ain't here, and don't know"^ 
what we have to meet, so we will go ahead, as if we hadn't 
heard from him, and he must ratify it." The Cameron 
contingent was secured for Lincoln on the second vote.^ 

On the third day, when the balloting was to take place, while 
the Seward men were parading the Lincoln men filled up the 
Wigwam, and their rivals had hard work to get in. Two men 
with voices like fog-horns, hired for service, had been placed 
at strategic points, instructed to yell for Lincoln when B. C. 
Cook, who sat on the platform, took his handkerchief from 
his pocket. Evarts nominated Seward, and there was loud 
and prolonged cheering. But when Norman Judd named Lin- 
coln there went such a series of yells as had never been heard 
before, low rates on the railroads having brought thousands of 
men from all over the State to the city for that specific pur- 
pose. The Seward howlers, led by Tom Hyer the pugilist, 
were dismayed. Several States nominated ' ' favorite sons ' ' — 
Dayton of New Jersey, Cameron of Pennsylvania, Chase of 
Ohio, Bates of Missouri, CoUamer of Vermont, McLean of 
Ohio — but the real contest was between Seward and Lincoln. 
On the first ballot the vote stood, Seward 1731/^, Lincoln 102. 
Thousands of men were keeping count, and on the second 
ballot the votes of Cameron came to Lincoln by agreement, 
which with other changes made the result, Seward 1841/2, Lin- 
coln 181. The third ballot gave Lincoln 2311^, which brought 
him within one and a half votes of the nomination. Where- 



Life of Lincoln, by W. C. Whitney, p. 289 (1907). 



274 LINCOLN AND HEENDON 

upon David Cartter changed four votes from Chase to Lincoln, 
and he was the nominee. Evarts, of New York, moved to make 
it unanimous, and the brass cannon on the roof of the Wigwam 
thundered the salute which set the city wild with joy. After 
naming Hannibal Hamlin for second place, the convention 
adjourned, and at every station as the delegates went home 
there were tar barrels burning, boys carrying rails, and guns, 
great and small, banging away.^ 

Lincoln had played ball most of the day, perhaps to work 
off the intense excitement that possessed him. Early in the 
afternoon he went to the telegraph office to await the outcome 
of the first ballot. It was evident that he was encouraged by 
the result. Soon news of the second ballot arrived, and he 
showed by his manner that he regarded the contest as won. 
He went with Charles Zane to the Journal office, and it was 
there that he received the final news of his high call, with a 
calmness not untouched with sadness. Looking at the tele- 
gram a moment, he said, "There is a little woman down on 
Eighth street who will be glad to hear this news," and strode 
away to tell her. In Washington Douglas was saying, "There 
won't be a tar barrel left in Illinois tonight!" 



As for the Democracy, it w^as now "a house divided against 
itself," built apparently upon sand and tottering to a fall. 
The Southern wing nominated John C. Breckenridge, of Ken- 
tucky, on a radical pro-slavery platform, while the Northern 
wing named Douglas, on a platform of "popular sovereignty" 
— thus fulfilling the prediction of Lincoln, that the Senator 
would have "the pill of sectionalism crowded down his own 
throat." As if to make confusion worse confounded, John 
Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts — 
the "Kangaroo Ticket," as it was called, because the "hind 
legs were the longest" — were put forward by a class of gen- 
tlemen some of whom thought slavery was right, and others of 
whom thought it wrong, but all agreeing that the trouble came 
1 Conventions of 1860, by Murat Halstead, p. 154. 



LINCOLN >S HERNDON 275 

of talking so much about it. So they presented a policy of 
"keep still and do nothing," anticipating an opinion held 
even in our day "that quite as much harm may be done by 
preaching the ten commandments as by violating them." ^ 

Notable was the tour of Senator Seward, despite his profound 
grief at losing the high prize, which has broken so many 
hearts.- His speeches in the West, which he had not visited 
since he became famous, were gems of eloquence and tact, 
remarkable in that, while dealing with one theme, they ex- 
hibited a kaleidoscopic variety of arrangement and i)hrase. 
His journey was one prolonged ovation. Equally notable was 
the canvass of Senator Douglas, who was the first man seeking 
that high office to take the stump in his own behalf. To many 
it was a humiliating spectacle, but his vigor, spirit, and elo- 
quence disarmed critics, and he spoke in most of the free, and 
in many of the Slave States, striking at Breckenridge on one 
side and Lincoln on the other, as representing sectionalism, 
while he assumed that he carried the banner of the Union. 
The "Wide Awakes," with their caps and oil-cloth capes and 
torch lights, marched to huge rallies, where wagon loads of 
decorated rails were the symbols of a man whose life-story 
appealed to the imagination of the nation. Yet below the 
noise and glare of the hour there was a solemn undertone 
of serious thought, of earnest questioning, of mingled hope and 
dread, as befitted a nation on the verge of a great ordeal. 
Herndon was active on the stump, and while speaking one day 
in October he received a note from his partner, written in a 
tremulous hand, informing him that Pennsylvania, Indiana, 
and Ohio were safe. He read it to the crowd, and so great 
was the joy that the speech was never finished. 

With a divided opposition, the election of Lincoln was al- 
most a foregone conclusion, but by a sectional vote. He car- 
ried every Northern State except New Jersey, where Douglas 
had tried the trick of fusion and won three of its electoral 
votes. Of the total electoral vote of 303, Lincoln received 180, 



^Abraham Lincoln, by F. W. Lehmann, p. 20 (1908). 

2 Life of Seu-ard, by F. Bancroft, Vol. I, pp. 54,5-50 (1900). 



276 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

which gave him a majority of 57 over all his opponents. 
Douglas got only seven, three from New Jersey and four from 
Missouri. Bell carried the States of Virginia, Tennessee, and 
Kentucky, with 39 votes, and Breckenridge all the Southern 
States and the border States of Delaware and Maryland, giv- 
ing him 72 votes. The total popular vote, except South Caro- 
lina, whose electors were chosen by the Legislature, was 
4,680,193. Of these Lincoln received 1,866,452; Douglas, 
1,375,157; Breckenridge, 847,953, which, with the vote of 
South Carolina was increased to 900,000 ; and Bell had 590,631. 
So that Douglas, who was second before the people, was lowest 
in the electoral college. Lincoln won over 26,000 votes in the 
border States, but not a single ballot in the South, and he 
failed by 474,000 of getting a majority of the popular vote. 
An ominous result; a divided North, with a majority figainst 
slavery, against a practically united South in favor of slavery. 

During the campaign Lincoln remained quietly in Spring- 
field, where the Governor's rooms in the State House were 
placed at his disposal, and there he met his callers, talked and 
joked, while preser\dng a sphinx-like silence. Wary and dis- 
creet, he wrote very little, and when embarrassing questions 
were asked he told a story or had his secretary, John G. Nico- 
lay, make a stereotyped reply, referring to his record and his 
speeches. "If they will not hear Moses and the prophets," 
he wrote to William Speer, "neither will they be persuaded 
though one rose from the dead." Some of the abuse heaped 
upon him gave him pain, for it was bitter to the point of 
brutality, especially in the Southern papers. Perhaps nothing 
gave him more sorrow than the attitude of the Springfield 
preachers : for of the twenty -three in town, twenty were against 
him.^ "These men well know," he said, "that I am for free- 
dom, and yet with this book ' ' — the New Testament — "in 
their hands, in the light of which human bondage cannot live 
a moment, they are going to vote against me. I do not under- 
stand it at all. ' ' 

No sooner had the vote been cast than Springfield became a 
1 Life of Lincoln, by J. G. Holland, pp. 236-39 (1866). 



LINCOLN'S HERNDQN 277 

mecca for newspaper men, would-be biographers, and a horde 
of hungry oflEice-seekers. The number of "original Lincoln 
men" became a multitude, giving their idol a foretaste of 
what he had to expect. Gentlemen with light baggage and 
heavy schemes came in deputations and delegations from all 
quartera and the hotels were jammed. Lincoln and Artemus 
"Ward saw no end of fun in this motley procession, and it was 
the fun that saved him. For, with the government in weak, 
if not hostile hands, and threatening chaos in the South, where 
anger flashed like lightning, this time of waiting was trying 
in the extreme.^ He was busy at cabinet making betimes, 
which was no easy task in view of the material with which he 
had to work. Often he would escape from the crowd and drop 
into the old office and have a chat with Herndon, and talk over 
affairs of business and state. He asked his partner to furnish 
some books to be used in writing his inaugural address — the 
speech of Henry Clay in 1850, the proclamation of Jackson 
against Nullification, and a copy of the Constitution ; and later, 
Webster's reply to Hayne, which he regarded as the master- 
piece of American eloquence. With these he retired to a 
dingy back room across from the State House, and wrote that 
address in which firmness blended with a half -sad gentleness. 
Old New Salem friends called to see him, and more than one 
brought up the memory of Ann Rutledge whose image he still 
kept in his heart, wrapped in the sweet and awful sadness of 
the valley of shadows. He slipped away to visit the grave of 
his father, and rode to Farmington, in Coles County, to see his 
aged step-mother who was still living. Amid such scenes of 
farewell, and the kindly greetings of old and dear friends, a 

1 An incident of these tiying days was an exchange of letters with 
Alexander Stephens, of Georgia. Stephens had made a speech before 
the Legislature of his State in favor of the Union, and Lincoln sent for 
a copy of it. Stephens sent the address, and with it a friendly letter 
reminding Lincoln of his solemn responsibility in time of peril. To which 
Lincoln replied, ' * for your eye only, ' ' asking if the people of the South 
really thought that he had any inclination to interfere with slavery in the 
States. Stephens respected the confidence until after the death of his 
friend. — Life of Stephens, by L. Pendleton, pp. 165-6 (1907). Also, 
Constitutional View of the War, by Stephens, Vol. II, p. 266 (1870). 



278 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



gloom as of the grave overshadowed, reviving the premonition, 
of which he had talked to Herndon as early as 1843, that some 
violent end was to overtake him at last. The last afternoon 
before he left for Washington was spent with Herndon in the 
office, in which they had toiled, and planned, and dreamed 
together. He locked the door, and after going over the cases, 
concerning which he had certain requests to make, and a few 
suggestions as to methods of procedure, they talked as old 
comrades. Lincoln asked his partner if he wanted any office, 
and, if so, to name it. Herndon wanted no office, except that 
of bank examiner which he then held, and Lincoln said he 
would speak to Richard Yates, the incoming Governor, in his 
behalf. Mr. Herndon writes : ^ 

After these were all disposed of he crossed to the opposite 
side of the room and threw himself down on the old office 
sofa, which, after many years of service, had been moved 
against the wall for support. He lay for a few moments, 
his face toward the ceiling, without either of us speaking. 
Presently he inquired, "Billy" — he always called me by 
that name — ' ' how long have we been together ? " " Over 
sixteen years," I answered. "We've never had a cross 
word during all that time, have we?" to which I returned 
a vehement, "No, indeed we have not." He then recalled 
some of the incidents of his early practice and took great 
pleasure in delineating the ludicrous features of many a 
law suit on the circuit. It was at this last interview in 
Springfield that he told me of the efforts that had been 
made by other lawyers to supplant me in the partnership 
with him. He insisted that such men were weak creatures, 
who, to use his own language, ' ' hoped to secure a law prac- 
tice by hanging to his coat-tail." I never saw him in a 
more cheerful mood. He gathered up a bundle of books 
and papers he wished to take with him and started to go; 
but before leaving he made the strange request that the 
sign-board w^hich swung on its rusty hinges at the foot of 
the stairway should remain. "Let it hang there undis- 
turbed," he said, with a significant lowering of his voice. 
* ' Give our clients to understand that the election of a Pres- 
ident makes no change in the firm of Lincoln & Herndon. 
If I live I'm coming back some time, and then we'll go 



Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. II, pp. 193-5. 



LINCOLN ^S HERNDON 279 

right on practicing law as if nothing had ever happened." 
He lingered a moment as if to take a last look at the old 
quarters, and then passed through the door into the narrow 
hallway. I accompanied him downstairs. . . . Grasping 
my hand warmly and with a fervent "Good-bye," he disap- 
peared down the street, and never came back to the office 
again. 



CHAPTER IX 
The Later Herndon 



It is not designed to give a detailed account of the life of Mr. 
Herndon, but only such part of it as had to do with his great 
partner and friend. So much of his time, however, was spent 
first in clearing away misunderstandings of Lincoln before 
he entered office and afterward, and later in gatl^ering and 
recording facts for a just and true appraisement of him, that 
the record is unusually rich. The story has thus a double 
interest and value, not more for its disclosure of interesting 
items about Lincoln than for its revelation of the same loyal 
and self-effacing friend, doing what he could to uphold the 
hands of his partner while li\dng and standing guard over his 
memory after death. Such a task was a boon in those lonely 
later years, when he needed something to divert attention from 
the going down of the sun. 

Hardly had the result of the election been announced than 
Herndon began a labor which, though unobtrusive and nat- 
ural, entitles him to our grateful regard. Lincoln, it should 
be remembered, had never held an executive office, and no one 
knew what powers he had for such an untried service. His 
ideas were well known, and his personality had become some- 
what familiar through the press, especially in the admirable 
sketches of him by Scripps and Howells ; but his capacity for 
executive leadership no one knew — not even Lincoln himself. 
Even in ordinary times there would have been some curiosity 
as to what so inexperienced a man would do, and in view of 
the startling events which followed in the wake of the election, 
it was natural that this curiosity should deepen into a pro- 
found anxiety. Not only a new man, but a new party was 
coming into power, and the national sky was dark and angry. 



THE LATER HERNDON 281 

During the campaign, party interests as well as manly im- 
pulse had led the Republicans to belittle the Southern threats 
of disunion. There had been such threats before, and it suited 
their purpose now to regard them as so much braggadocio in- 
dulged in for political effect. Lowell called the talk of se- 
cession a ' ' Mumbo- Jumbo ' ' that might frighten old women but 
that did not disturb the stock-market. Greeley declared that 
the South could no more unite upon such a wild scheme than 
a company of lunatics could conspire to break out of bedlam ; 
while W. T. Sherman, who was a shrewd observer and, in 1860, 
a resident of Louisiana, advised his brother to "bear the buf- 
fets of a sinking dynasty, and even smile at their impotent 
threats." ^ Douglas, it was thought, had exaggerated the per- 
ils of electing Lincoln, whose victory he foresaw from the first. 
Small wonder, then, that a pall fell over the North when one 
after another of the Slave States went out of the Union, and 
hoisted alien flags. Secession swept the South, not without 
violence used to crush hesitation and dissent, for the revolution 
was the work of a minority, as revolutions usually are. As 
the plot thickened, many who had helped to manoeuvre the 
rail-splitter into office began to wonder whether, after all, he 
was the man for such an hour. 

From far and near letters began to pour in upon Herndon, 
as the man who knew Lincoln better than any one else, asking 
what manner of man his partner was. Lincoln's task was one 
that might easily bewilder and appall : before him was dis- 
union ; behind him were fear and fainting hearts ; around him 
was treachery. But Herndon knew that, whatever his skill in 
executive art, he had the qualities most in request for the 
hour — unbending firmness and loyalty to principle, unshak- 
able courage, unwavering integrity, and a caressing human 
sympathy. His letter in reply to Senator Henry Wilson is 
typical of many that he wrote during those awful days of sus- 
pense, remarkable at once for its insight, its analysis, and for 
its faith in his partner: 

1 Life of Seward, br F. Bancroft, Vol. I, pp. 551-2 (1900). 



282 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

Springfield, 111., Dec. 21, 1860. 
Hon. Henry Wilson. 

Dear Sir : — I know Lincoln better than he knows him- 
self. I know this seems a little strong, but I risk the asser- 
tion. Lincoln is a man of heart — aye, as gentle as a wom- 
an 's and as tender — but he has a will strong as iron. He 
therefore loves all mankind, hates slavery and every form 
of despotism. Put these together — love for the slave, and 
a determination, a will, that justice, strong and unyielding, 
shall be done when he has the right to act — and you can 
form your own conclusion. Lincoln will fail here, namely, 
if a question of political economy — if any question comes 
up which is doubtful, questionable, which no man can dem- 
onstrate, then liis friends can rule him : but when on Justice, 
Right, Liberty, the Government, the Constitution, and the 
Union, then you may all stand aside : he will rule then, and 
no man can move him — no set of men can do it. There is 
no failure here. This is Lincoln, and you mark my pre- 
diction. You and I must keep the people right; God will 
keep Lincoln right! Yours truly, W. H. Herndon. 

Wilson still had his doubts, but years later he wrote to Herndon 
admitting that his prediction had come true to the letter. Lin- 
coln at that moment was being tested to the supreme degree, by 
his own party. Congress, finding disunion a fact, fell upon 
its knees, and offered the slave owners boundless concessions. 
It was ready to give slavery new guarantees of extension, to 
make the fugitive slave law more severe, to extend the Missouri 
Compromise line to the Pacific, to admit New Mexico with a 
slave code, and even to place slavery beyond the reach of con- 
stitutional amendment — thus making it, so far as law could 
make it, eternal. Such a resolution passed both houses of Con- 
gress. As Mr. Blaine remarks, it would ''have entrenched 
slavery securely in the organic law of the land. ' ' ^ Compro- 
mise was the order of the day, and even Seward seemed to 
tremble in silence. The Crittenden plan would have cut off 
the head of the Republican party, and yet such papers as the 
Albany Journal and the New York Times "began to perform 
the famous feat of St. Denys, walking and also talking with sev- 
1 Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. I, pp. 258-274 (1884). 



THE LATER HERNDON 283 

ered head held in the hand. " ^ Lincoln had advocated compro- 
mise in years gone by, and had been almost the last man to give 
it up, but now he would have none of it. His letters during this 
ordeal show what granitic firmness was in the man : 

To Kellogg he wrote : Entertain no proposition for a com- 
promise in regard to the extension of slavery. The instant 
you do, they have us under again ; all our labor is lost, and 
sooner or later must be done over. The tug has come, and 
better now than later. 

To E. B. Washburne : Prevent, as far as possible, any of 
our friends from demoralizing themselves and our cause by 
entertaining propositions for compromise of any sort on 
slavery extension. There is no possible compromise upon it 
but which puts us under again, and leaves all our work to be 
done over again. 

To J. P. Hale : If we surrender, it is the end of us and 
of the government. They will repeat the experiment upon 
us ad libitum. A year will not pass till we shall have to 
take Cuba as a condition upon which they will stay in the 
Union. 

This was the last desperate effort of the Slave Power to threat- 
en, cozen, and bribe both the friends of the Union and the en- 
emies of slavery; but Lincoln stood like a rock. What Hern- 
don feared was that, at the very last, the standard of the party, ' 
which he had fought to hold aloft, would be lowered by ig- 
nominious cowardice, and that Lincoln would have his hands 
tied when he entered office. The very thought of it made his 
heart quiver with indignation and fear. Hence his letter to 
Senator Trumbull, breathing intense feeling, while expressing 
his contempt for the office-seekers who besieged him for notes 
of recommendation : ^ 



1 Abraham Lincoln, by D. J. Snider, p. 480 (1908). 

2 This letter is part of a long correspondence between Mr. Herndon 
and Senator Trumbull — for they were intimate friends — beginning in 
1856 and continuing until 1866, which, by the kindness of Messrs. Horace 
White and J. W. Weik, is now in my possession. It resembles the cor 
respondence with Parker, dealing with the same ideas and scenes, but 
less elaborately, as it was unnecessary to describe the situations to Sen- 
ator Trumbull. The letters have the same vividness and animation, but 
are less valuable as pictures of the period. It seems, however, that 



284 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Springfield, 111., Feb. 9, 186L 
Friend Trumbull. 

Dear Sir : — I want to say one or two words to j^ou. I 
am bothered to death to sign petitions, applications, suppli- 
cations for office by greedy, hungry, ravenous office-seekers 
who, many of them, were never known to the Republicans 
till now. I am forced to give some kind of letters, etc., but 
let me say to you, that all they are intended for is simply 
politeness and not recommendations. Be not governed by 
anything which I may say by way of simple politeness. If 
I really want a man appointed I will say it out and out. I 
have signed no petitions as yet — except Bunn's .and — I 
forget the other. Keep what I say in mind. 

Are our Republican friends going to concede away dig- 
nity, Constitution, Union, Laws, and Justice? If they do 
I am their enemy — now and forever. 1 may not have much 
influence, but I will help to tear down your Republican party 
and erect another in its stead. Before I would buy the 
South by compromises and concessions to get what is the 
people's due I would die — rot and be forgotten willingly. 
Let me say to you that it the Republicans do concede any- 
thing more th?.n the South has already got — namely, her 
/ constitutional rights — the Republican party may consider 
death as the law. Your friend, W. H. Herndon. 

When Lincoln at last grasped the reins of State with his power- 
ful hands, Herndon breathed easily, knowing, as he said in his 
vivid way, that "the 'gates of hell cannot prevail' to make him 
lower either the flag or the ideal." He took up his business 
affairs with new heart, assured that with such a pilot the ship 
was safe, whatever storms might roar. Shortly after the in- 
auguration he visited Washington — ' ' to see how Lincoln looked 
in the White House ' ' ^ — and found the President furrowed 
and worn with care. One sentence of Lincoln's he recalled: 
"Billy, I hope there will be no trouble; but I will make the 
Trumbull once believed that Douglas intended to become a Republican, 
but was soon disillusioned of his belief. 

1 The first Mrs. Herndon died in August, 1860, and one year later 
Mr. Herndon married Miss Anna Miles. While paying addresses to her 
he conceived the idea of advancing his interests by securing a minor 
ofBce for her brother. Lincoln saw the point and made the appointment. 
Of course, this was not his chief errand to the capital. 



THE LATER HERNDON 285 

South a graveyard rather than see a slavery gospel triumph, or 
successful secession destroy the Union!" Both spoke kindly 
of Douglas, who was now showing that, despite his partisan 
sophistry in other days, he had a great patriotic heart. They 
talked a while of the old office, the clients, and the town, and 
the dark tide of war rolled between them once more. 

At last Lincoln and Douglas, so long rivals, if not enemies, 
were of one mind and one heart. Old animosities were forgot- 
ten in their common and high consecration to the Union. No 
sooner had Lincoln arrived in the capital, before the inaugura- 
tion, than he was closeted with Douglas, to whom he seems to 
have read his inaugural address.^ On the day of its delivery 
Douglas stood by the side of his former opponent, and when 
Henry Watterson, a young reporter, put out his hand to take 
the high hat of Lincoln, Douglas took it instead and held it 
during the ceremony, while the aged Judge Taney, who wrote 
the Dred Scott decision, inducted into office the man who was to 
make that opinion forever null and void.^ It was a simple, 
artless act, but a symbolical one, and its significance was not 
lost. When a shell burst over Fort Sumter, on April 12th, 
Lincoln and Douglas were cemented in one common aim. From 
that day on, they were in frequent consultation, and the sorely 
tried President was grateful for the grip of so strong a hand. 
Late at night, April 14th, Douglas heard Lincoln read his call 
for 75,000 men, and suggested that the number should be 
200,000; for he, at least, did not underrate the chivalry and 
valor of the South.' At once he offered his services to the 
President, willing to go or stay where he could do the most 
good. Lincoln asked him to go to Illinois, where his voice was 

1 Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen Johnson, p. 464 (1908). 

2 The Compromises of Life, by Henry Watterson, p. 153 (1903). 

3 ' ' Virginia, ' ' he said to his friends, pointing towards Arlington, 
' ' over yonder across the Patomac, will become a charnel-house. Wash- 
ington will become a city of hospitals, and churches will be used for the 
sick and wounded. This house, 'Minnesota Block,' will be devoted to 
that purpose before the war is ended." — Life of Lincoln, by I. N. 
Arnold, p. 193 (1-884). 



286 LINCOLN AND HEENDON 

like a bugle, and unify the State/ There was a quick hand- 
grasp, a hurried farewell, and they parted to meet no more. 
His speeches on the way were pitched in a lofty, patriotic key, 
and his address before the Legislature of his own State was one 
of the greatest of his life — putting to shame the devices of 
John A. Logan.- It was with strange and mingled feelings 
that Herndon listened to his old enemy speaking in behalf of 
Lincoln and the Union. 

At Chicago Douglas was welcomed as riever before. Friend 
and foe alike joined in paying tribute to the partisan who had 
emerged into a patriot, and his speeeh in the Wigwam, where 
Lincoln was nominated, was memorable. There he used his 
famous epigram : ' ' There can be no neutrals in this war ; 
only patriots — or traitors. ' ' An undertone of pathos was 
heard in his words, as he pleaded that the war be conducted in 
a humane spirit, for he remembered the home in the South 
still dear to him, where the mother of his boys had played as a 
girl. Not long afterward he fell ill, but even in his delirium 
he was battling for the Union : ' ' Telegraph to the President 
and let the column move on." He died on June 3rd, in the 
prime of life, at the age of forty-eight. Grief at his passing, 
when his life was so valuable, was profound and sincere.' 
Chicago was draped in mourning when, with almost royal 
pomp, his remains were laid to rest beside the lake.* 

1 There was a rumor, which persists to this day, that Lincoln intended 
to take Douglas into his Cabinet, or else give him a high military posi- 
tion ; but no one knows the truth of it. — Anecdotes of Famous Men, by 
J. W. Forney, Vol. I, pp. 121, 226 (1873). 

2 " I heard Mr. Douglas deliver his speech to the members of the 
Illinois Legislature, April 25, 1861, in the gathering tumult of arms. It 
was like a blast of thunder. I do not think it is possible for a human 
being to produce a more prodigious effect with spoken words. . . . He 
was standing in the same place where I had first heard Mr. Lincoln. 
That speech hushed the breath of treason in every corner of the 
State." — Horace White, Airaham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. 
II, pp. 126-7. 

^ Becollections of a Busy Life, p. 359 (1869). 

4 " It was a fitting resting-place. The tempestuous waters of the 
great lake reflect his own stormy career. Yet they have their milder 



THE LATER HERNDON 287 

Amidst rising and falling hope, victory and disaster, joy 
and gloom, the war raged. The story of Lincoln during those 
years was the story of his country, and need not be repeated 
here. Few realize, however, what opposition Lincoln had to 
encounter, politically, in 1864. Sherman had entered Georgia 
where there was constant fighting, but without decisive results. 
Grant was determined to pound Richmond into powder, if it 
took all summer. Volunteering had almost ceased. Draft 
after draft had been ordered, and taxes had increased terribly, 
while an immense debt was piling up — a million dollars a day. 
Anti-war Democrats declared the war a failure, and were mak- 
ing capital out of it. In the Cabinet, and among the higher 
officers discarded by the President, there were rivals. Arnold, 
himself an ardent friend of Lincoln, admits, in his book, Lin- 
coln and Slavery, that a majority of both Houses of Congress, 
and the leaders of the metropolitan press, were against the 
President. Koerner returned from Spain, whither he had 
gone as minister, and found the German leaders in revolt, but 
not the people.^ At one time Lincoln gave up all hope of a 
second term, and looked forward with joy to his release, for he 
was thin and worn and care-weary — so much so that Greeley 
doubted whether he would have lived out another term.^ But, 
despite the bickerings of politicians, his patience, wisdom, and 
fidelity held the people as with hooks of steel. They agreed 
with his homely saying, that "it is not wise to swap horses 
while crossing a stream," and they refused to swap. 

Herndon wrought valiantly in the campaign of 1864, speak- 
ing almost incessantly and with unusual eloquence and power. 
His relations with Lincoln gave an added prestige and inipres- 
siveness to his words, and while he did not parade the fact of 
his partnership, his tones betrayed his reverence for the gentle, 
incorruptible, magnificent manhood of the man who was his 
friend and his President. The sum of it all had been stated 

moods. There are hours when the sunlight falls aslant the subdued sur- 
face and irradiates the depths." — Stephen A. Douglas, by Allen John- 
son. 

1 Memoirs of Koerner, Vol. II, pp. 408-9 (1909). 

2 Seeollections of a Busy Life, p. 407 (1869). 



288 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



by Senator Doolittle, in his brief but unf orgetable speech • ' ' I 
believe in God and Abraham Lincoln ! " No partisan pettiness 
could stand against such a sentiment of blended admiration 
and gratitude, soon to be lifted almost to worship by the awful 
apocalypse of tragedy. Lincoln was triumphant, and the 
Confederacy, now only a hollow shell, collapsed on every side. 
As Greeley said, others might have restored ' ' the Union as it 
was," but God gave the one leader who, by his wisdom, pa- 
tience, and courage, restored it free of the stain of human 
slavery; "leaving to such short-sighted mortals as I no part 
but to wonder and adore. ' ' ^ 

Six days after the surrender of Lee, amid the joy of victory, 
Lincoln fell — dying for his country as truly as any soldier 
who fell fighting in the ranks. On that day, by an act of in- 
sanity, the prostrate, bleeding South lost her best and wisest 
friend, and the only man strong enough and kind enough to 
have saved her from that ordeal of re-destruction, which was 
far worse than the war. He was for forgiveness, mutual recon- 
ciliation, and brotherly love, but his dream was not to come 
true. No words can describe that Easter Sunday when the 
nation, dumb with grief and rage, took down the festoons and 
arches, celebrating the end of the war, and replaced them with 
the draperies of sorrow. Even his enemies understood Lin- 
coln at last in the hour of his transfiguration, and his long, 
strange funeral procession homeward was a sad ovation of love 
and loyalty. Farmers could be seen from the car window, 
dim figures in the night, watching the train sweep by, waving 
farewell. 

At the meeting of the Springfield bar on the day that Lin- 
coln died, held in the court-house in which he had practiced so 
long, a number of lawyers delivered eloquent addresses. Last 
of all came Mr. Herndon, who spoke of his exalted virtues, of 
his great intellectual capacity, of his clear moral perceptions, 
of his wonderful sagacity, and, with trembling voice, of his 
kind heart. In closing he spoke with deep emotion of the good 
feeling and good will that always existed between them. On 



1 EecoUections, by Horace Greeley, p. 409 (1869). 



THE LATER HERNDON 289 

May 3rd, the casket was borne to the State House — to the Rep- 
resentative Hall, the very chamber in which, in 1854, he had 
delivered his first great speech against the evil of slavery. ]\Ir. 
Herndon describes the scene : 

The doors were thrown open, the coffin lid was removed, and 
we who had known the illustrious dead in other days, before 
the nation had laid its claim upon him, moved sadly through 
and looked for tlie last time on the silent, upturned lace of 
our departed friend. All da}^ long and through the night 
a stream of people filed reverently by the catafalque. Some 
of them were his colleagues at the bar ; some his old friends 
from New Salem ; some crippled soldiers fresh from the bat- 
tle-fields of the war; and some were little children who, 
scarce realizing the impressiveness of the scene, were des- 
tined to live to tell their children yet to be born the sad 
story of Lincoln 's death. At ten o 'clock in the morning of 
the second day, . . . the vault door opened and received 
to its final rest all that was mortal of A])raham Lincoln.^ 

II 

Again a stream of letters poured in upon Mr. Herndon, asking 
for reminiscences, facts, and items about Lincoln, whose life- 
story appealed to the imagination of the nation. Newspaper 
men, biographers, and magazine writers visited and inter- 
viewed him, and he was always willing to tell them what they 
asked to know.- Much time and labor were thus spent in seek- 
ing to set his great friend in a proper light before the public. 
Ready writers came to Springfield, just as they do now, and 
after spending a few days, went away and wrote elaborately, 
informing the world of the life, character, and genius of Lin- 
coln. Such performances disgusted Herndon, since these 

^Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. II, 283. 

2 Among a number of Herndon manuscripts, now in my hands, is 
one entitled "Statement: a Memorandum, Jan., 1886" which gives a 
list of the biographies to which he contributed time, energy, and facts: 
those by Holland, Barrett, Lamon, Arnold, the Memorial Album, and 
others. These men could hardly have written their books without his 
aid but they give him little credit. He does not attempt to keep trace 
of the number of interviews with journalists, while his correspondents 
were almost without number. 



290 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

facile scribes sought rather to confirm an idealized popular 
conception than to know the truth. Eulogy of this sort an- 
noyed him because it belittled Lincoln, in that it praised him 
without discrimination for attributes which he did not possess, 
while leaving out of account his really great qualities. 

With the hope of counteracting this tendency, Mr. Herndon 
delivered a number of lectures on Lincoln in Springfield dur- 
ing the winter of 1865-6. They were somewhat crude as to 
art, for he lacked the polish of a man of letters, but they bore 
every mark of accuracy, veracity, and insight, as over against 
the sentimental apotheosis then going on. They were reverent 
and faithful portrayals of Lincoln, of his humble beginnings 
amidst primitive surroundings, of his early habits, tendencies, 
and aspirations, of the struggle and sorrow whereby he became 
a man, of the qualities of his mind, with its blend of abstract 
thought and practical sagacity, of his political ambition and 
shrewdness, and finally of his patriotic statesmanship. The 
third address, which was a description of Lincoln and an an- 
alysis of his intellect, afterwards served as the closing chapter 
of his biography, and it remains a classic to this day. Besides, 
he wrote articles for the Chicago Tribune on various aspects 
of the life of Lincoln, correcting errors and setting forth the 
man as he knew him. 

These articles, with excerpts from his lectures, went the 
rounds of the press, and he was severely censured by many. 
Some, Arnold, for instance, wrote urging him to desist, lest the 
enemies of Lincoln pervert the facts to the injury of his fame. 
Others insisted that Herndon was so close to the stump that he 
could not see the size of the tree, and still others regarded him 
as an embittered man who was slandering the dead. In spite 
of all fears, he labored without rest in the faith that the real 
Lincoln was greater than the fictitious image of popular fancy, 
and that the more vividly he was revealed the more secure his 
memory would be. Oddly enough, for years there were those 
who thought that he had turned traitor to his friend and was 
engaged in besmirching a great, a revered memory, as if the 
plain story of Lincoln were a slander. Others dismissed him 



THE LATER HERNDON 291 

as a man of no sensibilities, of gross taste, a peddler of gossip, 
unworthy of notice. If any such remain, let them read these 
words from a letter written in reply to such a complaint in 
1866: 

I wish to address you as a man of good judgment, and good 
taste. To my own knowledge Lincoln has for thirty years 
been led by God through a fiery furnace, heated white hot. 
By this purifying process of God he has been broadened and 
deepened in his sympathy and love for man, has been made 
more liberal, more sympathetic, more tolerant, more kind 
and tender — the noblest and loveliest character since Christ. 
His qualities and characteristics were developed, if not cre- 
ated, by that fiery furnace journey, and yet timid men, false 
friends, would rob him of his crown to keep up a fancied 
ideal in their own little minds. I shall not aid in that crime 
by robbery of the tomb and fame of Lincoln ! 

Some men say that Lincoln was a tender man, and yet 
they do not wish to know and learn how he was made so. 
He was President of the United States, and yet men do not 
want to know what made him President. I say to you that 
sjrmpathy aided — strongly and visibly aided — to make 
him the ruler of a great free people. Where did he get his 
sympathy for the black man, the low bred and oppressed? 
In God's fiery furnace, and yet you will not hear of it! 
Lincoln was God 's chosen one — His special man — His 
great-hearted man for America and her times. God tested 
him by leading him through the fiery furnace. 

I have thought about all these things, have analyzed my- 
self — what I know and the facts — and have determined 
my course. I know what I am doing.^ 

Surely these were not the words of a morose and embittered 
man who had betrayed the memory of a friend. Indeed, it ia 
not too much to say that, had Mr. Herndon not taken his stand 
in behalf of the unvarnished truth, continued his labors, and 
endured the censure heaped upon him, the true Lincoln would 
now be more than half hidden from our view. He recalled the 
fate of Washington at the hands of Weems, who turned a man 
of high and tender humanity into a stiff and colorless statue, 
not a man but a marble image. ' ' Such an image, built up by 
1 Ms. letter to Mr. Hickmaa, Dec. 6, 1866. 



292 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



falsehood and suppression, is a sham, a lie, and a fraud, ' ' which 
Lincoln, who loved the truth, would repudiate. If his enemies 
were eager to belie him, that was all the more reason why his 
friends should be alert to tell the truth, "sift the facts here 
and now, ' ' lest vague and shadowy rumors float into the future. 
Arnold wrote, not without a touch of satire, regretting that 
Herndon should feel that the fame of Lincoln rested in his 
hands, pleading that some of the facts, which Lincoln left un- 
explained, be left in the silence of the grave. Herndon re- 
plied : 

Is any man so insane as to suppose that any truth concern- 
ing Lincoln will be hid and buried out of human view? 
Polly! The best w^ay is to tell the whole truth and let it 
burn up lies. Lincoln is above reproach, thank God ; let no 
one fear to have all the truth about him brought clearly to 
light. I do not deal in "gossip," and will not. Lincoln's 
reputation does not rest in my hands, nor exclusively in 
yours. Wliat you so fear is that some fact, left unexplained 
by Lincoln, will be uttered by me. If you dread that, you 
had better burn up your books : because nearly all of Lin- 
coln 's life is such a state of facts. ... No man explains all 
he does, not one tenth of it. He leaves most of his acts in 
obscurity. Some men do not "blow their own horn," and 
where they are great, noble, national men, let us blow their 
horns for them. Mr. Lincoln was an ambitious man, strug- 
gled for the Presidency, and reached it, yet he left many of 
his motives, purposes, desires in the dead silence. Shall we 
not tell the truth about them simply because he was too 
modest, and too sensible, to "blow his own horn?" He 
made his great house-divided-against-itself speech, and yet 
he never wholly explained to any mortal man why he did it. 
Shall we not inquire into the reasons? You and I are left 
for that very duty, and let us do it.^ 

Just when Mr. Herndon formed the idea of writing a biography 
of Lincoln, is not known ; but it was almost certainly before his 
partner became President. His editorial in the Sangamon 
Journal describing the speech delivered by Lincoln at Spring- 
field, October, 1854, gives a hint of such a purpose. At least, 

1 Ms. letter to I. N. Arnold, Nov. 30, 1866, by the kindness of 
J. W. Weik. 



THE LATER HEBNDQN 298 

we find him making notes of the doings and sayings of his part- 
ner as early as 1856, and when Lincoln died Herndon ?eemed 
to be the only man who had a complete and chronological file 
of his speeches, with the places and dates of their delivery. 
More than once he wrote to Lincoln in the White House asking 
for copies of his speeches. No doubt Lincoln suspected some 
such purpose on the part of his junior partner when in 1858, 
after trying to read the Life of Edmund Burke, he gave his 
opinion of biographies which made heroes of men.^ In an in- 
troduction to one of his lectures in 1866 INIr. Herndon ex- 
plained, in part at least, why his biography of Lincoln had been 
delayed, and those reasons became more urgent as the years 
went on : 

My pecuniary condition will not let me rest. Duty holds 
me sternly to my profession. I cannot drop these duties, 
spurred on by necessity, as I am, to sit down and finish the 
long contemplated life of Mr. Lincoln. I am compelled to 
work slowly, but what 1 shall lose in speed I shall gain in 
value and certainty of record. I owe to man the facts and 
the story which shall become, I believe, not through me, as 
to artistic beauty, one of the world's most classic stories. I 
wish to perform my duty honestly and truthfully. I do 
not wish to injure the dead, nor to wound the feelings of 
any living man or woman. I want only truth, and am deep- 
ly interested to have facts known exactly as they are, truth- 
fully and substantially told. 

Happily there were those who saw what he was trying to do 
and had faith not only in his good judgment, but in his good 
taste as well. All felt that the biographies so far published — 
those by Holland and Barrett — while admirable in many 
ways, considering the short time since the death of Ijincoln, 
were, as one critic remarked, "simply histories of Mr. Lin- 
coln's time, and not carefully written reflections of the do- 
mestic and inner life of the man himself. ' ' Others were prom- 
ised, including a large work by R. D. Owen, and a history of 
Lincoln's Administration, by I. N. Arnold, besides a collec- 
tion of Anecdotes of the Late Ahraham Lincoln, by C. G. 

1 Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. Tf, p. 147. 



294 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



Leland. After mentioning these forthcoming volumes, the 
Philadelphia Bulletin, April 1, 1866, has this to say of Mr. 
Herndon and his work : 

The reader has probably perused a portion at least of those 
admirable lectures on the late Abraham Lincoln, Iw Mr. 
Herndon, which were so extensively published in the news- 
papers, and so generally commented upon as presenting re- 
markable and highly original reflections and descriptions. 
As it may be inferred that Abraham Lincoln would not Jiave 
been for twenty years associated with a man of only ordinary 
capacity, it was not astonishing that these lectures should in- 
dicate in Mr. Herndon a genius of no ordinary kind. His 
description of Mr. Lincoln's personal appearance has be- 
come the standard and universally accepted word-portrait 
of the original, while his anaylsis of the mind and disposi- 
tion of his subject, indicated a very rare combination of deli- 
cate examination and a strict conscientiousness, allied with 
a happy appreciation of all that is characteristic and inter- 
esting. Mr. Herndon has, as the public will be glad to 
learn, determined to give us a good life of Mr. Lincoln — 
personal, social, domestic, religious, and legal — as the pos- 
session of a vast amount of facts and illustrations (far trans- 
cending that held by any other man) will enable him to do. 
Of his ability to set his material forth in a vividly interesting 
form, his lectures are the best guarantee, as well as the fact 
that for a large portion of the incidents relative to Lincoln's 
early life now current, the public were originally indebted 
to Mr. Herndon — a truth which the writer of these re- 
marks infers not only from the frequent mention of Mr. 
Herndon 's name as authority for many interesting Lincoln- 
ana, but from the mere circumstance that no other man so 
curious in matters of biography was so thoroughly con- 
versant with the subject. 

It has been well observed that posterity may afford the 
best biographers of a man's public life; but for his early 
career, we must depend on those of his own time. To this 
early career of Lincoln, previous to his life at Washington, 
Mr. Herndon has devoted great attention, and collected a 
vast amount of exceedingly rich material, which will set 
forth "Father Abraham" as a living personality, talking to 
the reader at his fireside, gravely or quaintly discussing his 
law office, and presenting, in fact, so much of every thing 
which is not known of the subject as could be anticipated 
from a writer of Mr. Herndon 's sagacity and collective dis- 



THE LATER HERNDON 295 

position, aided by twenty years of the most intimate per- 
sonal relations. 

One of the enthusiasms of Mr. Herndon was his admiration for 
the pioneers, their achievements and sayings. Any one who 
spoke slurringly of the early settlers, especially of Illinois, 
many of whom he knew, was sure to provoke his ire. For ex- 
ample : one writer remarked, speaking of Thomas Lincoln, that 
when ' ' inefficient men become uncomfortable they are likely to 
try emigration as a remedy," and that a good deal of "the 
spirit of the pioneers" was simply a "spirit of shiftless dis- 
content." How unjust this was to the pioneer in general, and 
to Thomas Lincoln in particular, no one has shown with more 
earnestness and eloquence than Mr. Herndon did in his lecture 
entitled, "Abraham Lincoln, Miss Rutledge, New Salem, Pio- 
neering, and the Poem" — a lecture as remarkable in its con- 
tents as in its title.^ The lecture has not been widely pub- 
lished, except in part, and this may excuse the length of the ex- 
eerpt to follow; the more so as it portrays the background 
against which the early life of both Lincoln and Herndon must 
be seen. It was delivered in 1866, and contained, besides the 
first recital of the romance of Lincoln and Ann Rutledge, an 
astonishing wealth of nature lore. Herndon knew the town of 
New Salem, its scenery and its people, and the place was dear 
to him for its memories of Lincoln not less than for its natural 
beauty. Some liberty has been taken in arranging the passage, 
which is an admirable specimen of the vivid, virile style of the 
writer: 

As I sit on the verge of the town, I cannot exclude from my 
memory the forms, faces and voices of those I once knew so 



1 Parts of the lecture appeared in the papers ot the time and created 
a flurry of comment, some surmising that Herndon himself had been a 
suitor for the hand of Miss Eutledge. This, of course, was untrue. But 
the display of nature lore was indeed remarkable, some of its passages 
being floral processions to an accompaniment of bird-song. My thanks 
are due to the Illinois Historical Society for its use, though a small 
edition of the lecture has recently been published (1910). The "Poem" 
referred to in the title was the piece, a favorite with Lincoln, "Oh. why 
should the spirit of mortal be proud?" 



296 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

well. In my imagination, the little town perched on the 
hill is astir with busy men, and from the country come men 
and women afoot and on horseback, to see and be seen. Oh, 
what a history! Here it was that bold roysterer met and 
greeted roysterer; bumper rang to bumper, and strong 
friend met friend and fought friend. Here it was that 
every newcomer was initiated, quickly and rudely, into the 
lights and mysteries of Western life. They were men of no 
college culture, but they had their broad, well-tested experi- 
ences, good sense and sound judgment, and if the stranger 
bore well his part he at once became, thenceforward, a 
brother of the clan forever. This is not a fancy picture. 
It existed as I have told it, and Lincoln had to pass it. He 
did it nobly and well, and held unlimited sway over the 
clan. . . . Such a people the world never sees but once, 
and such a people ! I knew them all ; have been with them 
all, and respect them all. This is the ground on which Lin- 
coln walked, sported, joked and laughed, studied surveying 
and grammar, read for the first time Shakespear and Burns, 
and here it was that he loved and despaired. The spirit of 
New Salem is to me lonely and yet sweet. It presides over 
the soul gently, tenderly, yet sadly. It does not frown. It 
does not crush. It entices and enwraps. 

Four distinct waves or classes of men have followed each 
other on the soil we daily tread. The first was the Indian. 
The second was the bee and beaver hunter, the embodied 
spirit of Western pioneering — wandering gypsies of the 
forests and the plains. This original man was tall, lean, 
cadaverous, sallow, shaggy-haired; his face was sharp and 
angular; his eyes small, sunken, inquisitive, and piercing. 
He wore a hunting shirt made of soft buckskin, buckled 
tightly about his body. His moccasins were of the very 
best buck. He never tired, was quick, slirewd, powerful, 
cunning, brave, and cautious. He was shy, nervous, and 
uneasy in the villages. He dreaded, did not scorn, our civil- 
ization. . . . See him in the wilds, as I have seen him, 
strike up the loose rim of his hat, that hung like a rag over 
his eyes, and peer keenly into the distance for Indian or 
deer. Overtake him and try to hold conversation with him, 
if you can. He was stern, silent, secretive, and uncommun- 
icative — a man of deeds, not speech. His words were of 
one syllable, sharp nouns and active verbs mostly. He was 
swifter than the Indian, stronger, and had more brains. This 
man was bee-hunter, trapper, and Indian fighter. ... Is 
fire inefficient in its heat? Is lightning inefficient in its 



THE LATER HERNDON 297 

activity? If so, we may admit that these were inefficient 
men! 

The third class was composed of three distinct varieties 
of men, coming as a triple wave. The first was the religious 
man, a John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness ; the 
second was the honest, hardy, thrifty, active, economical 
farmer ; and the third class was composed of the wild, genial, 
social man — a mixture of the gentleman and the rowdy. 
They were a hospitable class of men, had no economy, cared 
only for the hour, and yet many of them grew rich. It was 
impossible to hate them, and impossible to cheat, whip or 
fool them. They gave tone and caste and character to the 
neighborhood, in spite of all that can be said. These men, 
especially about New Salem, could shave a horse's mane 
and tail and offer him for sale to the owner in the very act 
of inquiring for his own horse. They could hoop up in a 
hogshead a drunken man, they themselves being drunk, and 
roll the man down New Salem hill. Yet they could clear a 
forest of Indians or wolves in a short time ; could trench a 
pond, ditch a bog, erect a log house, pray and fight, make 
a village or create a State. They would do all for fun, or 
from necessity — do it for a neighbor — and they could do 
the reverse of all this for pure, unalloyed deviltry. They 
attended church, heard the sermon, wept and prayed, got up 
and fought an hour, and then went back to prayer, just as 
the spirit moved them. These men — 1 am speaking gen- 
erally — were always true to women — their fast friends, 
protectors and defenders. There were scarcely any such 
on the globe for this virtue. Though these men were rude 
and rough, though life's forces ran over the edge of its 
bowl and sparkled in pure deviltry, yet place before them 
a man who needed their aid, a woman, a widow, or a child, 
then they melted into sympathy and charity, quick as a 
flash, and gave all they had, and toiled willingly or played 
cards for more. 

It is not necessary for me to defend Thomas Lincoln. It 
is not necessary that I should flatter the pioneer. It is ad- 
mitted that all men emigrate from their homes to new lands 
in the hope of bettering their conditions, which at home are 
sometimes chafingly uncomfortable. The pioneers did not 
go to the wilderness always in lust of land; they went to 
satisfy their souls. The spirit of pioneering is not a spirit 
of "shiftless discontent," nor any part of it, but is the 
creating spirit ; a desire to rise up in the scale of being ; the 
Spirit of God moving in the hearts of men as on the face of 



298 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

the waters. Good men and tender women do not, from a 
spirit of "shiftless discontent," quit their homes and the 
sacred ashes of their dead, and rush into an unsettled wil- 
derness, where they know they must struggle with disease, 
poverty, Nature, the wild wolf and wilder men. They go at 
God's command. . . . The pioneers were not inefficient 
men. They had energy and creative activity, with capacity, 
honesty, and valor. Their children can point with pride to 
the deep, broad, magnanimous foundations of these States 
created by them. 

My defense is ended. The red man has gone. The hunter 
has gone, the wild animals treading closely on his heels. 
He and they are gone, never to return. As path-makers, 
blazers, mappers, they had their uses in the di\dne plan. 
The rollicking roysterer is still among us, though tamed by 
age into a moral man. They were succeeded by the Arm- 
strongs, the Rutledges, the Greens, the Spears, the Lincolns, 
who have their uses in the great Idea. A fourth class have 
come among us seeking fortune, position, power, fame, hav- 
ing ideas, philosophy, gearing the forces of nature for hu- 
man uses, purposes and wants. They come from the East, 
from the Middle States, from the South; they come from 
every quarter of the globe, full-grown men. Here are the 
English and the German, the Scotch and the Irish; here 
and there and everywhere is the indomitable and inevitable 
Yankee, victorious over all. Thus we come and go, and in 
coming and going we have risen up through force, cunning 
and the rifle, to the dollars, the steam engine, and the Idea. 
We have moved from wolf to mind. We have grown up- 
ward, outward, higher, and better, living in more virtue, 
less vice, freer and purer. So are the records of all time ! 

As an example at once of native eloquence and social insight, 
as a defense of the pioneer and a picture of the background 
whence the newer West evolved out of the old, this passage is 
worthy of remembrance. Both Lincoln and Herndon lived 
and grew midway in that transition, and strange lights and 
shadows blended in their natures. Of Southern origin and 
Northern spirit, they belonged to an order of men peculiar to 
the great West, as unlike the psalm-singing, witch-hunting 
Yankees of the East as the slaveholding, sport-loving feudal 
lords of the far South. Had it not been for these men, and 
others of their kind, the Union would have gone to pieces in a 



THE LATER HEBNDQN 299 

conflict between forces so alien, so unrelenting, and so extreme. 
Sound of body, clear of mind, generous and humane of heart, 
they united abstract thought with practical sagacity, and hard- 
headed realism with the spirit of poetry. 

Ill 

Among other visitors entertained by Mr. Hemdon was George 
Alfred Townsend — better known as ' ' Gath, ' ' his pen-name — 
correspondent, lecturer, and poet. He came to Springfield to 
lecture, and having two days of leisure he spent one half of 
each talking to Mr. Herndon about his famous partner. The 
result was an article entitled ' ' The Real Life of Abraham Lin- 
coln : A Talk with his Late Law Partner, ' ' which appeared in 
the New York Tribune, dated January 25, 1867. It included, 
among other things, the following description of Mr. Herndon, 
his office, and his library: 

Until very lately you might have read upon a bare stairway, 
opposite the Court House Square, the sign of "Lincoln & 
Herndon. ' ' A year ago it gave place to the name of ' ' Hern- 
don & Zane. ' ' Ascending the stairs one flight, you see two 
doors to your right hand. That in the rear leads to what 
was for a generation the law office of the President. With- 
in, is a dismantled room, strewn with faded briefs and leaves 
of books; no desks nor chairs remaining; a single bracket 
of gas darkened in the center, by whose flame he whom our 
children's children shall reverently name, prepared, per- 
haps, his gentle, sturdy utterances: and out of the window 
you get a sweep of stable-roofs, dingy back-yards and ash- 
heaps. As simple an office, even for a country lawyer, as 
ever I saw in my life, it is now in the transition condition 
of being prepared for another tenant. 

In the middle of the room the future President sat at a 
table side, and in the adjoining room the table and all the 
furniture of the place is still retained, while in the back 
corner, looking meditatively at the cylinder stove, you see 
Mr. Herndon. He resembles Mr. Lincoln so much, and in 
his present quarters, garb, and worldly condition, is so 
nearly a reproduction of "A. Lincoln, lawyer," that we 
may as well take a turn around the surviving man and the 
room. How young Herndon might have looked twenty-five 
years ago we can scarcely infer from the saffron-faced, blue- 



300 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

black haired man before us, bearded bushily at the throat, 
disposed to shut one eye for accuracy in conversation, his 
teeth discolored by tobacco, and over his angular features, 
which suggest Lincoln's in ampleness and shape, the same 
half-tender melancholy. 

' ' Mr. Lincoln, ' ' said Mr. Herndon, ' ' cared so little about 
clothes that he sometimes did not put all of them on. He 
was brought up barefoot." Mr. Herndon, by parallel, 
wears to-day a bright yellow pair of breeches, turned up 
twice at the bottoms, and looks to be a wind-hardened farm- 
er, rather than one of the best lawyers in the State, and, as 
a public man, is charged with delivering the best stump 
speeches in Illinois, on the Republican side, during the late 
election. His address is homely in form, commencing with, 
"Friend, I'll answer your question;" and this he does 
without equivocation, with his long fore-finger extended, and 
with such a fund of new information upon the revered mem- 
ory in question that although the Lincoln biographers, from 
Holland up, have talked with him, he seems to be brim-full 
of new reminiscences. With an extraordinary memory, 
great facility of inference, and a sturdy originality oi. opin- 
ion, he had the effect upon me to stagger all my notions of 
the dead President. 

He has been a wonderful desultory reader, and in his law 
library you may see the anomalous companions for a prairie 
attorney of Bailey's F est us, Kant's Critique, Comte's Phil- 
osophy, Louis Blanc, and many of the disobedient essayists. 
He has one of the best private libraries in the West, and in 
this respect he is unlike Mr. Lincoln, who seldom bought a 
book, and seldom read one. 

After the death of Lincoln, with other disasters "following 
fast and following faster," Mr. Herndon seemed to lose interest 
to some extent in human affairs, particularly in politics and 
in the law as a science. He retired to his farm a few miles 
from Springfield, still keeping his office in town until Mr. 
Zane, his partner, was elevated to the bench. In farming, 
however, he was a failure, but he took great delight in his 
garden in which he cultivated specimens of all the wild flowers 
in Illinois. An outlay of money for farm improvements just 
before the panic in the early seventies, plunged him into finan- 
cial distress, forcing him to lose a part of his splendid library ; 



THE LATER HERNDON 301 

and the disappointment exposed him to the assaults of his old 
infirmity of drink. By selling copies of his Lincolnana to 
W. H. Lamon for $2,000 he recovered himself, and turned his 
attention to the raising of various sorts of fruits. This ven- 
ture proved to be successful and he soon found himself on more 
solid footing. Through it all he kept a brave heart, despite 
occasional lapses, and he was never a man to trouble others 
with his misfortunes. Lincoln students continued to visit 
him, some of them staying for weeks at a time, for he was as 
generous with his time as with his vast store of materials. One 
regrets to record that some of these scribes — if one may not 
call them Pharisees — forgot to give him due credit for his aid, 
often parading his materials as the fruits of their own research- 
es.^ 

In July, 1873, an article appeared in Scribner's Monthly 
reporting a lecture on ' ' The Religion of Lincoln, ' ' by the Rev. 
J. A. Reed, who described himself as the "defender of the 
Christian faith of Lincoln." Mr. Reed, who had once been 
pastor of the First Presbyterian church of Springfield, was 
one of the few ministers whom Lincoln had liked as a man, and 
his lecture, brought out no doubt by the statements made in the 
Lamon biography,- created no little stir. It was claimed that 
Lincoln, just before leaving Springfield for Washington, had 
made an examination of the evidences of Christianity, and had 
intimated to the writer his acceptance of the faith, if not of the 
theology, of the orthodox church. Of course there was joy in 
evangelical circles. Some rejoiced to learn that Lincoln, be- 
fore his death, had attained to saving faith, while others has- 
tened to add his name to the list of eminent indorsers of 
Christianity. Sceptics sneered at the idea that Lincoln had 

1 The Ms. ' * Statement : a Memorandum, ' ' by Mr. Herndon, dated 
1886, now in my hands, gives a partial list of those whom he assisted 
in this way. Names need not be mentioned; but if these men, instead 
of belittling Mr. Herndon, as some of them did, had confessed their 
indebtedness to him, it would have been more in accord with the ameni- 
ties of life. Herndon himself uttered no complaint against them. 

2 Life of Lincoln, by W. H. Lamon, pp. 486-504 (1872). 



30 2 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

been in danger of being lost and had been rescued by a creed 
which, strangely enough, seemed to be in need of his signature.^ 

Herndon, who had been accused of writing the Lamon bio- 
graphy, was on his feet at once, and never did his truth-loving 
spirit shine more brightly than in the midst of this nauseating 
furore. Reviled by pietists for telling the truth about the 
early rationalism of Lincoln, and beseiged by crude "free- 
thinkers" who could not be made to see his growing spiritual- 
ity, he was betwixt two fires. The better to clarify the air, 
he delivered a lecture in Springfield on the ''Later Life and 
Religious Sentiments of Lincoln, ' ' which, though somewhat too 
c'>mbative in tone, was a lucid statement of the truth in the 
case. Had Lincoln held the orthodox creed Herndon would 
have been the first to divulge the fact, and to defend it; but 
such was not the fact, and he refused to permit a coterie of 
men to canonize him in that faith. Nor did he credit the idea 
that Lincoln, while harassed by office-seekers at home and 
watching the gathering chaos at Washington, had devoted his 
time to an examination of Christian evidences. No doubt he 
was subdued to a prayerful mood by what lay before him, but 
the cast of his mind did not admit of such a rapid and radical 
change of view as had been claimed. What Herndon insisted 
upon was that Lincoln should not be made to appear other 
than he really was, and for this insistence he deserves the 
thanks of all right-thinking men. 

No one could doubt that Lincoln was a man of deep religious 
nature, which had been refined, as Herndon said, in "God's 
fiery furnace," but he was never orthodox in his views. He 
was in fa ct a theist, if not a fatalist, in belief, and by the very 

1 Of course Dr. Eeed did not foresee the wrangle -which his lecture 
precipitated. No one knew better than he that Christianity, as Emerson 
said of beauty, is its own excuse for being, its own ineffable evidence. 
If its humane and heavenly genius does not persuade men, neither will 
they be convinced by a list of notable names. If in his own mind Dr. 
Eeed distinguished between the spirit of Jesus and the various forms of 
dogma, in his lecture he did not make the distinction clear; and thereiu 
lay his error. That familiar distinction clears the air at once, and had 
it been kept in mind there would have been no haggling over the religion 
of Lincoln. 



THE LATER HERNDON 303 

terms of his philosophy, which he held to the end, he rejected 
the idea of miracles, upon which orthodox theology rests. Dr. 
Reed had made the mistake, so common among ministers dur- 
ing the life of Lincoln, and to which so many are wont to cling 
to this day. Misled by the courteous and sincere sympathy 
of the President for all faiths worthy of respect, he mistook 
a native poetic religiousness for belief in the dogmas which in 
his own mind were identified with religious feeling. Though 
a man of Christ-like spirit, if ever there was one, Lincoln did 
not accept the dogmas of the Confessions of Faith.^ But 
whatever he thought of those dogmas, he practiced as few men 
ever did the most difficult Christian virtues, even amid the wild 
hell of war. 

After Mr. Zane ascended to the bench, Mr. Herndon formed 
a partnership in law with Mr. Alfred Orendorff ^ — afterward 
Adjutant General of Illinois — which continued for fifteen 
years. During the last years of their partnership Herndon 
was not often in the office — where indeed he had little to detain 
him — but spent his time on his farm, and in going hither and 
yon in quest of new materials for his biography of Lincoln. 
Many of his manuscripts, written at this time, are now before 
me, and they show a tireless industry, a passion of accuracy, 
and a profound reverence for his old friend and partner. He 
was happy in his work, deeply interested in current politics — 
having become a rampant free-trader — with recurring out- 
bursts of almost boyish enthusiasm. Occasionally he delivered 

1 " I have never united myself to any church, ' ' said Lincoln to H. C. 
Deming, ' ' because I have found difficulty in giving my assent, without 
mental reservation, to the long, complicated statements of Christiou doe- 
trine which characterize their Articles of Belief and Confession of Faith. 
When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualification for 
membership, the Savior's condensed statement of the substance of the 
Gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with 
all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,' that 
church will I join with all my heart and all my soul." — The Inner Life 
of Lincoln, by F. B. Carpenter, p. 190 (1869). 

2 General Orendorff was a brilliant and lovable man, prominent for 
years in Illinois, in the legal fraternity, in politics, and in military circles. 
He died in Springfield in 1909. 



304 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

lectures on Lincoln, one especially at Petersburg, among the 
old friends of the dead President, which was greatly enjoyed. 
Along in the early eighties he met Jesse W. Weik, who was 
studying Lincoln, and together they planned and wrote "the 
long contemplated biography," which finally appeared in three 
volumes in 1889. Much of the writing was done by Mr. Weik 
from copious notes furnished by Mr. Herndon, who was now 
far advanced in years and too infirm for the drudgery of writ- 
ing the three volumes. Unfortunately the firm of Bedford & 
Clark failed soon after the book appeared, and the hopes of 
Mr. Herndon were all but dashed to pieces. Besides, he was 
deeply wounded by certain critics who, though they had never 
seen Lincoln, wrote as if they knew more about him than the 
man who had been his partner for many years. Cast down but 
not destroyed, he planned a new edition of the biography, and 
was fortunate in securing the aid of Mr. Horace White who 
wrote a notable chapter descriptive of the Lincoln-Douglas 
debates. The new edition, with important alterations, omis- 
sions, and additions, was published by D. Appleton & Company, 
but alas, as fate would have it, Mr. Herndon did not live to see 
his dream come true. It appeared in two volumes in 1892, 
with a brief introduction by Mr. Horace White in which we 
read these words, every syllable of which is true : 

What Mr. Lincoln was after he became President can be 
best understood by knowing what he was before. The world 
owes more to William H. Herndon for this particular knowl- 
edge than to all other persons taken together. It is no exag- 
geration to say that his death removed from earth the person 
who, of all others, had most thoroughly searched the sources 
of Mr. Lincoln's biography and had most attentively, intel- 
ligently, and also lovingly studied his character. . . . Their 
partnership began in 1843, and it continued until it was 
dissolved by the death of the senior member. Between them 
there was never an unkind word or thought. When Mr. 
Lincoln became President, Mr. Herndon could have had his 
fortunes materially advanced under the new Administra- 
tion by saying the word. He was a poor man then and 
always, but he chose to remain in his humble station and to 
earn his 1)read by his daily labor. . . . As a portraiture 
of the man Lincoln — and this is what we look for above all 




Jesse W. Weik 



THE LATER HERNDON 305 

things in a biography — I venture to think that Mr. Hern- 
don 's work will never be surpassed. 

IV 

While engaged in preparing the biography — without whose 
aid it would never have been written — Mr. Weik came to know 
Mr. Ilerndon intimately and to admire him for his sturdy hon 
esty, his lofty motives and his passion for truth. Writing of 
Mr. Herndon as he knew him, Mr. Weik gives the following 
discriminating estimate of the man, noting at once his strength 
and his obvious limitations. 

My acquaintance with i\Ir. Herndon began soon after my 
graduation from college in the seventies. I had gone to 
Springfield to study Lincoln and met Herndon for the first 
time in the dingy room which he and his partner had oc- 
cupied for an office. From this time forward I was des- 
tined to share, to the end of his days, the confidence and 
close association of this rare man and generous friend; and 
shall never cease to be thankful for the affinity that grew 
up between us. From Herndon I learned how to measure 
Lincoln, to dissect his moral structure and analyze his 
mental processes. No other man ever lived who knew as 
much about the immortal Railsplitter, who comprehended 
him so thoroughly, who had dug so deep and laid bare the 
springs of action, the motives that animated his ' ' clear head, 
brave heart, and strong right arm." With implicit and 
almost fanatical devotion Herndon clung to Lincoln, and 
we do not have to go far to find evidence that the latter, 
throughout all the memorable and tempestuous times that 
made him great, bared his heart and soul to "Billy" Hern- 
don with all the candor and confidence of a brother. 

His unvarying and inflexible devotion to the truth was 
the predominating trait in the character of William H. Hern- 
don. In this respect he resembled his illustrious companion. 
Both men, up to a certain point, were very much alike. But 
there was a difference. Lincoln, deeply cautious and re- 
strained, was prone to abstract and thoughtful calculation. 
Herndon, by nature forceful and alert, was quick, impulsive 
and often precipitate. If he detected wrong he proclaimed 
the fact instantly and everj'^where, never piling up his wrath 
and strength as Lincoln did for a future sweeping and 
crushing blow. He never stopped to calculate the force, 



306 



LINCOLN AND HEENDON 



momentum or effect of his opposition, but fought at the 
drop of a hat, and fought incessantly, pushing blindly 
through the smoke of battle until he was either hopelessly 
overcome or stood on the hill-top of victory. Younger than 
Lincoln, he was more venturesome, more versatile, and 
magnificently oblivious of consequences. Conscious of his 
limitations he knew that he was too bold, too extreme to 
achieve success in politics, and he therefore sunk himself 
in the fortunes of his more happily poised partner. ... 
When, in the days yet to come, the searchlight of truth is 
turned on the picture, posterity will be sure to accept the 
verdict of Ilerndon's friends, that he was a noble, broad- 
minded, honest man; incapable of a mean or selfish act, 
brave and big-hearted ; tolerant, forgiving, just, and as true 
to Lincoln as the needle to the pole.^ 
During the last year of his life, while preparing the second 
edition of his biography of Lincoln, Mr. Herndon wrote fre- 
quent letters to Mr. Horace White, who was assisting him. By 
the kindness of Mr. White those letters are now before me, and 
they are interesting as so many glimpses of the writer in his 
last phase, as well as for a number of valuable and curious 
bibliographical facts which they reveal. Again and again he 
refers to the crusade for tariff reform then going on, and 
other movements of contemporary politics in which he was 
deeply interested, but these matters may be omitted. Only 
excerpts need be given : 

April, 1890 : In reply let me say that I never wrote a page, 
paragraph, sentence, or word for Laraon's Life of Lincoln, 
and never suggested to him any course or method to be pur- 
sued in his book. I sold to Lamon for $2,000 a copy of my 
manuscripts of the Lincoln records, facts which I had gath- 
ered up in 1870-1. Lamon used my name, I suppose, to 
give his book some popularity. If what facts and opinions 
he got from me were stricken out of his book there would 
not be much left of it, as I think. The reason why Lamon 
did not finish the second volume was because of a three 
cornered fight. Lamon and Black had a quarrel about the 
book, and they had a quarrel with their publishers. Lastly, 
Holland's review of the book, which was a mean thing, 



Mss., prepared by Mr. Weik, July 4th, 1910. 



THE LATER HERNDON 307 

squelched things completely. Black lost his money and his 
time through the muss. 

You refer me to Lamon, page 396, and ask if the para- 
graph is true or false. It is in all things substantially cor- 
rect. In speaking of Douglas and the Charleston conven- 
tion, and the divided state of the Democracy in 1859-60, 
Lincoln often said to me, and to others in my presence, 
substantially this: "The end is not yet, but another ex- 
plosion must come in the near future. Douglas is a great 
man in his way and has quite unlimited power over the 
great mass of his party, especially in the North. If he 
goes to the Charleston convention, which he Avill do, he, in a 
spirit of revenge, will split the convention wide open and 
give it the devil; and right here is our future success, or 
rather the glad hope of it." By the way, Lincoln prayed 
for this state of affairs : he saw in it opportunity and wisely 
played his line. He studied the trend of political affairs, 
drew conclusions as to general results, and calmly bided 
his time. Lincoln was the great American thinker and the 
unknown — at least to the mass of men. He felt that 
Douglas was the strong man and that he must be put out of 
the way, politically. He did not fear any man in the 
South. He was after Douglas, always scheming and plan- 
ning. 

May, 1890 : You regret, as well as myself, that I sold 
my Mss. to Lamon. The reason why T did so was that I was 
then, in 1870-72, a poor devil and had to sell to live. From 
1853 to 1865 I spent all my time and money for the "nig- 
ger, ' ' or rather for Liberty and the Union — lost my prac- 
tice, went to farming, and went under in the crash of 1871- 
3, and that, too, from no speculations — vices, etc. Today 
I have to work for tomorrow's bread, and yet I am a happy 
and contented man. I own a little farm of 65 acres and 
raise fruits for a living. Now you have the reasons for my 
acts. 

In reference to Lamon 's book I can say truthfully that 
Chauncy F. Black, son of J. S. Black, wrote quite every 
word of it. I infer this much from Black himself. He 
used to write to me about it. The publishers struck out of 
it a whole chapter, or nearly so. The chapter, as I under- 
stand it, was on Buchanan's Administration, or rather the 
last year of it. I think that act, among others, created the 
split. I have for years been written to by various persons 
to know why Lamon was so much prejudiced against Lin- 
coln. The bitterness, if any, was not in Lamon so much as 



308 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

in Black, though I am convinced that Lamon was no solid, 
firm friend of Lincoln, especially during Lincoln's Admin- 
istration, or the latter end of it. 
Meanwhile he had received and read, with great delight, the 
chapter on the Lincoln-Douglas debates which Horace White 
wrote for the forthcoming edition of the biography. With a 
sure stroke he put his pen upon the excellent qualities of that 
essay, which is by far the best account ever written of that 
great campaign. What he liked best was its simple, unadorned 
style : 

Friend, it is a fine piece and let me thank you a thousand 
times for it. I am glad that you followed the late historical 
methods. I like your treatment of Douglas. The fact is 
I once despised the man for his want of morals, but I have 
forgotten all this and only remember his good points, his 
energy and his genius. Your piece will be the best chapter 
in the life of Lincoln. I am glad that it is just what it is : 
it is exhaustive of the subject. You might have hammered 
it out and made it thinner and weaker, but no poetry, no 
adjectives, no superlatives would have done it any good. 
In your own opinion you did not reach your ideal, but that 
is natural. Our ideals are just an inch beyond our reach. 

You hit Arnold a good lick : he was a credulous man with- 
out any critical ability at all ; his book contains many errors, 
but it did not become, me to say one word against Arnold's 
book. I helped him a good deal in his Life of Lincoln. Mr. 
Arnold is correct, however, when he states that Lincoln said, 
"I am fighting for bigger game." Lincoln made use of the 
expression.^ He was a shrewd, sagacious, cunning, far- 
seeing man, and he purposely politically killed Douglas. I 
can see Lincoln now setting his stakes for that end. 

Yes, Lamon 's book was a great failure. The materials 
of it richly deserve a better fate. I hope you will have a 
good time on your recreation spree. I wish I could trip it 
with you. White, are you getting rich? I am as poor as 
Job's turkey. 

October, 1890: My ears are always open to my friends, 

1 Mr. Herndon was not alone in his criticism of Mr. Arnold 's Life 
of Lincoln, which, though an admirable book, slurred over the facts about 
Lincoln's youth. — Lf/e of Lincoln, by J. T. Morse, p. 9 (1896). But 
Mr. Arnold was one of the few biographers of Lincoln who was just 
to Mr. Douglas, perhaps because they were old friends. 



THE LATER HERNDQN 309 

and I wish all men would write to me as candidly as you 
have done. ... I will write to General Wilson and re- 
quest him to burn my Lincoln letters to him. I have never 
opened to any person, except yourself and General Wilson, 
the story of Lincoln's history. My motives were good in 
doing as I did. I wished to throw light on the mysterious 
phases of his wonderful life. / loved Lincoln, and I tliought 
the reading world wished all the lights I had. Hence the 
facts told in the biography and in private letters. 1 may 
have erred in the head, but my heart was right. I can tell 
from the ring of your words that friendship dictated every 
word of your advice, and I thank you. Give my highest 
regards to your wife and children. 

November, 1890 : I have received a letter from General 
Wilson in which he says : "I recognize the wisdom of your 
wishes and will destroy your letters." ... In my last let- 
ter I unintentionally touched a tender chord in your bosom. 
Excuse me. I have passed through the same and know what 
the loss of a good wife is. Friend, we can bring life into 
the world, but we cannot keep it here : it will vanish, we 
know not where, and this thing we call immortality, is it not 
a shadow of our egotism thrown into the future ? It grati- 
fies this little man to think that Nature takes providential 
care of him and destroys all else for the sake of him. 

February, 1891 : I am still diligently gathering well- 
authenticated facts about Lincoln. Many I reject, because 
they are not in harmony with the fundamental elements of 
his nature, and because they come to me in unauthentic 
shapes. I expect to continue gathering facts about Lincoln 
as long as I live, and when I go hence the reading world 
shall have my Mss. unchanged, unaltered, just as I took 
them down. I think that they will be of value to mankind 
sometime. I have been at this business since 1865. Every 
day I think of some fact, and it suggests other facts. The 
human mind is a curious thing. I have been sick all winter. 

One month later, on March 14, 1891, Mr. Herndon died at his 
humble home on his farm five miles from Springfield, his last 
words being : "I have received my summons ; I am an over- 
ripe sheaf ; but I will take the weaker one with me " — referring 
to his son, who died the same day. So passed an ardent, 
impetuous man of great native ability, radical of mind but 
lovable of soul ; a strong man whose zeal often exceeded his 
wisdom, but whose charity was unfailing; a man of noble 



310 LINCOLN AN D HEBNDON 

integrity as a citizen, a lawyer, and a friend; unwilling to 
compromise truth, yet eager to give every man his due. He 
has been cruelly misjudged, if not foully belied, but oil this 
may be forgotten, for he has passed 

"To where, beyond these voices, there is peace." 



CHAPTEE X 

Herndon's Lincoln 

Lincoln literature is enormous. To attain the rank of an ex- 
pert in this field means years of toil, but one who is not an 
expert may hazard the opinion that, in spite of all that has 
been written, we yet lack a thoroughly satisfactory book about 
the life and work and character of Lincoln.^ Some few have 
had the necessary knowledge and sympathy, but their literary 
power was inadequate. Others have written well, but they 
have failed of understanding. Many of the books about Lin- 
coln are worthless, some are valuable, a few are notable, but 
an adequate record and estimate of that remarkable man is 
among the things awaited. So far no writer of the first order 
has attempted to recite that strange yet simple story. No one 
has done for Lincoln what Morley did for Gladstone, either 
because we have so few literary statesmen, or because the time 
has not arrived. 

In the meantime the volume of facts, impressions, and rem- 
iniscences of Lincoln increases, and through an assembling 
of items in a variety of ways we are coming to a composite 
conception of the man that is at once vivid and satisfying. 
That so many have written of him is a tribute to his hold upon 
the aflPections of men, for it has not fallen to his lot to become 



1 Perhaps the mass of Lincoln literature would number 5,000 items, 
which of course includes many pamphlets — a veritable paradise for 
collectors. — LmicoZw in 1854, by Horace White, pp. 22-3 (1908). What 
is here said is not intended to belittle any biographer or student of 
Lincoln, but surely no one will claim that the final biography of him 
has been written. Probably the best brief biographies are those by 
Hapgood, Morse, and Binns, in the order named. It is matter for regret 
that Henry Watterson did not finish his biography of Lincoln, which no 
doubt would have been a memorable volume. He had gone abroad to 
write it, but was called home by the exigences of the campaign of 1896. 



312 L INCOLN AND HERNDON 

a mere statue in the hall of memory, but to remain warmly 
human, almost as if he had lived on through the years ; and 
happily no artist has ironed all the human wrinkles out of his 
rugged, homely face. But we need a really great biography 
of Lincoln, whose pages, while portraying thfe development of 
his life, shall be invested with the atmosphere of his personal- 
ity; and for such a work the canvass, the colors, and the 
cleared light of time are ready for the touch of a master hand. 



As to the Herndon biography, it is worth while to study its 
spirit, purpose, and methods, if for no other reason, to learn 
■--his conception of a man whom he had studied for forty years.^ 
Had he written it in 1866, as he had planned to do, perhaps it 
would have had more fire in it, more of the glow and color of 
that strange personality which swayed him, at times, like a 
religious experience. Misfortune, however, prevented him, 
and much of his materials went into other books. Despite 
this loss, he gained much by a longer perspective and a calmer 
vision, though he never passed from under that "long-endur- 
ing spell," no matter how hard he tried to free himself from 
it, as he thought he must do, in behalf of a more unbiased judg- 
ment. I\Iany of the manuscript notes from which the bio- 
graphy was written are before me, and they show how fresh 
the great memory was upon him, how carefully he sought to 
describe it, how eager he was to be just, how patiently he 

1 Of the biographies published during his lifetime, Mr. Herndon re- 
garded that by Lamon as, on the whole, the truest, though he was aware 
of its grave defects (Ms. "Statement: a Memorandum, Jan., 1886"). Hol- 
land was too romantic, Arnold too credulous, while Nicolay and Hay 
glossed over many things in the early life of Lincoln. He followed the 
Nicolay-Hay series in the Century, and his verdict was that "the boys," 
as he called them — for such they were to him — had done good work, 
though some of their theories amused him (Ms. letters to Mr. Weik, Jan., 
1887). He was a generous critic, however, knowing how hard it was to 
explain Lincoln; that is, when any student was sincerely trying to know 
the truth. But for some others he had no mercy, and asked none. 



HERNDON'S LINCOLN 313 

labored to be accurate. "When the first edition appeared in 
1889, the Atlantic Monthly said in an excellent review : 

We think we are not mistaken in looking upon Herndon's 
Lincoln as a most timely and valuable contribution to a 
just understanding of that great man, even though much 
of it in a preliminary form appears to have found place 
originally in Lamon's Life. Considered only as a memoire 
pour sevoir, it is of unmistakable service. It bears the 
marks of patient and painstaking labor in gathering all the 
iacts regarding Lincoln's origin and early years; and when 
the reader considers that Mr. Herndon was Lincoln's law 
partner for twenty years ; that he made his acquaintance as 
far back as 1837 ; that he lived amongst Lincoln 's early 
companions, and, so to speak, spoke the Illinois language, 
it is easy to see how important may be his testimony. In 
addition, the open-minded reader can scarcely read this art- 
less book without feeling a growing confidence in Mr. Hern- 
don's honesty and accuracy. The very offenses against 
good taste show him to be a good witness, and it has many 
charms for cultivated readers through the very homeliness 
of its narrative. To any one who wishes to know the truth 
about Lincoln, at whatever cost to illusions, this book is 
invaluable and suggestive. 

No one knew better than Mr. Herndon that he was not the man 
to write the final biography of Lincoln. He lacked, as he 
frankly confessed, the necessary literary skill for such an 
undertaking, caring "less for the composition than for the 
solid substance ; ' ' but he recognized the obligation upon him 
to furnish the raw material from which some future artist 
might evoke a work of beauty. His idea was that the real 
Lincoln should be portrayed just as he was in life, struggle, 
and growth, without idealization or degradation, full length, 
no fact omitted, no angle smoothed away. If in his own record 
he stood so straight that he leaned a little backward, it was 
characteristic of a man to whom Lincoln was too great, too 
honest, and too noble for mere eulogy, and who was certain 
that "the more truth we know about him the more he will be 
honored and loved." Surely this was a truer tribute than 
the portrayal of an ideally impossible or impossibly ideal Lin- 



314 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

coin would have been, though certain lady-like persons were 
sorely grieved. 

As it is, no one need prepare a brief in vindication of Mr. 
Herndon and his work — nor is this study such a defense, for 
his frailties have been recorded here alongside his virtues, just 
as he would have them stand. Every year Time, greatest of all 
critics, justifies him by displacing the idol and setting up the 
man Lincoln, and the Lincoln whom the world knows and 
loves to-day is the Lincoln whom Herndon knew and loved. 
If his portrait startled at first, it was not for long, as the dis- 
cerning soon saw that Lincoln was the greater for the peccadil- 
loes his friend had pointed out. Herndon kept ever in mind 
the words of Lincoln in 1858, when, after trying to read the 
Life of Edmund Burke, he threw it aside and said : 

No, I've read enough of it. It 's like all the others. Biogra- 
phies as generally written are not only misleading, but 
false. The author of this life of Burke makes a wonderful 
hero out of his subject. He magnifies liis perfections — 
if he had any — and suppresses his imperfections. He is 
so faithful in his zeal and so lavish in praise of his every 
act that one is almost driven to believe that Burke never 
made a mistake or a failure in his life. Billy, I 've wondered 
why book publishers and merchants don't have blank bio- 
graphies on their shelves, always ready for an emergency ; 
so that, if a man happens to die, his heirs or his friends, if 
they wish to perpetuate his memory, can purchase one al- 
ready written, but with blanks. These blanks they can at 
their pleasure fill up with rosy sentences full of high-sound- 
ing praise. In most instances they commemorate a lie, and 
cheat posterity out of the truth. History is not history un- 
less it is the truth. 

Like all human beings Herndon made errors, both of fact and 
of taste, but he remembered the words of Lincoln and tried to 
follow them literally. Time did not dim the great memory, 
but it made him analytical, and in his effort to explain Lincoln 
it was inevitable that he should form certain theories, and as 
inevitable that he should cling to them somewhat tenaciously. 
But even his theories are interesting and valuable, as showing 
what qualities in Lincoln most impressed him, and what qual- 



HERNDON^S LINCOLN 315 

ities, if any, he failed to read aright. Very wisely he confined 
himself to the personal life of Lincoln, though, if we may judge 
from his letters to Senator Trumbull,^ he at one time intended 
to treat of his official life as well. But for that task he was not 
fitted, and happily that field had been repeatedly covered be- 
fore his long-delayed volumes appeared. Others may describe 
the personal, social, domestic, and office life of Lincoln with 
more artistic touch, but as an analysis of the intellectual traits 
and moral character of his partner the work of Herndon can 
never be superseded. 

Despite its obvious crudities, its lack of proportion, and its 
emphasis upon matters which might have been given less space, 
the Herndon biography has undeniable charms which even the 
most obdurate critic must admire. For one thing, the modesty 
of the author must impress the reader from the first line to the 
last. Indeed, it is almost a defect of the book that Mr. Hern- 
don kept himself too much in the background, leaving out 
many charming details of his fellowship with Lincoln for fear 
of seeming to exploit himself.^ Others — Whitney, for in- 
stance — • who were far less intimate with Lincoln, paraded 
their association with him in a manner to disgust Herndon, 
who did not wish to ride into fame on the coat-tail of his part- 
ner.^ There was, besides, a special reason for hiding himself 
in this book, since Lamon, to his amazement, had shown him in 



1 Ms. letters to Senator Trumbull, Jan. 11, 1866, Aug. 16, 1866. The 
questions he asked Senator Trumbull show that he did not know the life 
cf Lincoln in the White House with sufficient detail to make a record 
of it. 

2 For example: when Lincoln sued the Illinois Central Railroad for 
a fee of $5,000 he telegraphed to Herndon to remain in the offiice until 
his train arrived that night. At last he came in with the money and 
counted out Herndon 's half; but when Herndon started to take it Lin- 
coln stopped him, and said: "Hold on, Billy; how often have you 
stretched yourself on that sofa and discoursed of how the corporations 
are strangling the life out of this nation? This is corporation money! " 
Notwithstanding the peril of the country, Herndon took the money. 

s He even hesitated to lecture on Lincoln, lest it be thought that he 
was trading upon the name of his partner; and for the same reason it 
almost broke his heart to have to sell copies of his Lincoln records. 



316 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

the light of a teacher and leader of Lincoln, intimating, repeat- 
edly, that he had by persistence and strategy converted his 
partner to anti-slavery faith and feeling. Hence the frequent 
protests of Herndon that he was not conscious of ever having 
influenced Lincoln in the slightest degree; which was an ex- 
aggeration, for two such strong men could not work together 
for so many years and not be influenced by such fellowship 
and contact. But the real reason for his modesty was of a 
piece with his life of self-effacement in behalf of his partner 
and friend, whose greatness he divined from the first and 
whose interest and fame he sought to serve. 

Even the casual reader must note the absence of mawkish 
sentiment in the Herndon record, in contrast with the half- 
pitying tone of others who dwell upon the early environment 
of Lincoln. Herndon knew that primitive environment, it had 
enwrapped his own life, and therefore he did not sentimentalize 
about it. If the life of the pioneer had its hardships and haz- 
ard, it had also its compensations. When Nicolay and Hay, 
in trying to explain the melancholy of Lincoln, said that the 
pioneers were a lonely, unsocial folk who never smiled, Hern- 
don wished that they might have attended some of the corn- 
huskings, log-rollings, hoe-down dances, musters, elections, 
and camp-meetings of the olden times.^ They would have seen, 
instead, a jovial, smiling, rollicking people, quite unlike the 
lonely, shadow-haunted pioneers of imagination. Nor did 
Herndon indulge in saccharine slaverings over the early priva- 
tions of Lincoln, as though that strong, self-reliant youth, 
whose lot was not more forlorn than that of many another lad 
of his day, were an object of pity. No doubt the tempera- 
mental melancholy of Lincoln evoked sympathy, as his charac- 
ter invited confidence, but of all men he was the last to desire 
the sympatliy of his fellows. Of this matter, as of some others 
to be noted, Mr. Herndon wrote with more point in his manu- 
script notes than in his printed record. Thus : 

Men who do not know Lincoln and never did, have paraded 
his hardships and struggles in his early days in glowing, or 
1 Ms. letter to J. W. Weik, Jan., 1887. 



I 



HERNDON'S LINCOLN 317 

sad, words. Such a description of the raan is not exactly 
true. He never saw a day that he did not have many 
friends who vied with each other for the pleasure of assisting 
him financiallj', and in all ways. Lincoln deserved all this 
confidence and respect: he was all honor and integrity, 
spoke the whole truth and acted it. Like all boys in the 
great West and elsewhere, he had to study in order to learn. 
Life was comparatively easy in his case, as compared with 
the struggles of other ambitious young men. Lincoln was 
the favorite of everybody, man, woman and child, where he 
lived and was known, and he richly deserved it. But gen- 
erally he rejected all help, his motto being that those who 
receive favors owe a debt of gratitude, and are to that ex- 
tent slaves.^ 

Lincoln, as Herndon knew him, was not only self-reliant, but 
self-dependent to a degree that amazed and baffled his friends. 
Considerate of others, ready to listen to advice, he was yet suf- 
ficient unto himself, having his resources within his own na- 
ture. Frank and genial up to a certain point, he was one of 
the most reticent of men, keeping his own counsel, so that 
Leonard Swett said, with some impatience, "You cannot tell 
what Lincoln is going to do, until he does it." Hence the 
difficulty of describing him, and the reason for so many fail- 
ures to do so. Even Herndon, whose intuition was almost 
feminine in its divination, was often puzzled. Naturally he 
was impatient with those glib writers who imagined that, be- 
cause the ideas of Lincoln and his mode of expressing them 
were so simple, his character and mental processes were easy 
of analysis. Such, however, was not the fact, and it empha- 
sizes the utter worthlessness of much that has been written 
about him. If Herndon often fails to reach the lonely inner 
life of his partner, hidden within so many folds of reserve, 
he at least leaves us with a sense of wonder. Speaking of the 
work of Nicolay and Hay, in which he found much to com- 
mend, he said : 

They tell a good truth when they state that "Lincoln re- 
ceived everybody's confidence and rarely gave his own in 
return. ' ' That is emphatically Lincoln. Again, the ' ' boys ' ' 



Ma. essay written for C. O. Poole, Jan., 1886. 



318 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

I uge the word ' ' boys " in a respectful sense — state an- 
other fact, namely, that Mr. Lincoln had great individuality 
which he never sank in the mob. His individualism stood 
out from the mass of men like a lone cliff over the plain be- 
low. Again they say that Lincoln had great dignity, and 
that is the truth. He was a very plain man and, to a cer- 
tain point, of easy approach — quite democratic and social 
— but beyond a certain ring of self-respect, of reserve, 
which surrounded and guarded his person, no man ever 
dared to go without a silent but powerful rebuff. He would 
be cheerful and chatty, social and communicative, tell his 
stories and laugh, and yet you could see, if you had any per- 
ception, that Lincoln's soul was not present: it was in an- 
other sphere. He was with you and he was not with you ; 
familiar with you and yet kept you at a distance. He was 
an abstracted man, and few knew him. . . . This explains 
why Holland never found out anything while here gather- 
ing facts ; and it further explains why there was such a dis- 
agreement among the citizens of Springfield as to the nature 
and characteristics of Lincoln.^ Few knew the man, and 
the many were ignorant ; hence the confusion. Lincoln was 
a reticent, secretive, incommunicable man. I have seen and 
felt this in him a thousand times. He lived a pure and 
lofty life — this I know — and in his practical life he was 
spiritual.^ 

None the less Herndon knew Lincoln as no one else ever knew 
him, and he has portrayed him as far as one man can ever reveal 
another. He had seen him grow in the midst of the years, from 
an awkward, impetuous youth to a man of intellectual nobility 
and spiritual refinement — tested by trial, softened by sorrow, 
hardened by difficulty, baffled by defeat, sobered by victory. 
He knew the strength of the man and his limitations, the qual- 
ity of his intellect, the integrity of his conscience, the kindness 
of his heart; the cast of his thought, and his sombre outlook 
upon life; his humor and his pathos, his prudence and his 
practical sagacity. He had known and felt these qualities 
when they were young together, and he never ceased to admire 
them. Yet there was that in Lincoln which always eluded 

iLife of Lincoln, by J. G. Holland, pp. 240-42 (1866). 
2 Ms. letter to Jesse W. Weik, Feb., 1887. 



HERNDON^S LINCOLN 319 

him, an indefinable and uncapturable something which cast 
over him, as it easts over us, a mysterious and haunting spell. 

II 

One would rather leave out of account the debated questions in- 
volved in the Herndon record. Yet so much ado has been 
made over them, and so much more injustice has been done to 
Herndon than he ever did to the memory of his partner, that 
some notice must be taken of them, unpleasant as such a task 
may be. There are two such questions, but it must be said that 
neither of them is the real basis of the absurd prejudice against 
Mr. Herndon, which ought long ago to have vanished. The 
real reason for the feeling against him was his refusal to per- 
mit Lincoln to be " canonized as a Calvinistic saint ; ' ' and that 
he was right in tliis is not open to debate. That he made one 
unhappy blunder of taste, and of fact, all now admit ; but sure- 
ly, after the foregoing pages, all must see that it was an error 
of the head and not of the heart. No one can any longer doubt 
that it was his zeal for the truth at any cost that misled him, 
and a virtue so rare in a biographer should condone some of- 
fenses. 

As is well known, the head and front of his offending had to 
do with the ancestry of Lincoln, so long veiled in obscurity. 
Without trying to excuse Mr. Herndon for any blunder he 
may have made, it is but just to say that it was not his error at 
all. The confusion of facts was due to a mistake of Lincoln 
himself, who remained all his life ignorant of his own pedigree, 
thinking that he was born out of wedlock and of an ancestry 
of which he had no reason to be proud. Hence the silence and 
sadness which enshrouded him when the subject was mentioned, 
and a significant reserve in speaking of his origin. Only once 
did he speak of it to Mr. Herndon : 

It was about 1850, when he and I were driving in his one- 
horse buggy to the court in Menard County, Illinois. The 
suit we were going to try was one in which we were likely, 
either directly or collaterally, to touch upon the subject of 
heredity traits. During the ride he spoke, for the first time 
in my hearing, of his mother, dwelling on her characteristics, 



320 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

and mentioning or enumerating what qualities he inherited 
from her. He said, among other things, that she was the 
daughter of Lucy Hanks and a well-bred but obscure Vir- 
ginia farmer or planter ; and he argued that from this last 
source came his power of analysis, his logic, his mental activ- 
ity, his ambition, and all the qualities that distinguished him 
from the other members and descendants of the Hanks fam- 
ily.^ 
Both men held the theory — still an article of faith to many — 
that the divine fire of genius is kindled in the flame of unlaw- 
ful love. Of course Lincoln did not apply the theory to him- 
self, since he was not vain enough to imagine that he was a 
genius ; but Herndon applied it to him, and found in it a clew 
to the mysterious man by his side. Another mistake by Lin- 
coln in 1860 added to the confusion. To J. L. Scripps, who 
came to Springfield to get from him the facts for a sketch of 
his life, he said that his father and mother were married in 
Hardin County, Kentucky.^ Scripps afterwards said, "He 
communicated some facts to me concerning his ancestry, which 
he did not wish to have published then, and which I have never 
alluded to before."^ After a diligent search at Elizabeth- 
town, the county-seat of Hardin County, no record of the mar- 
riage was found ; and no one need be told that such a discrep- 
ancy would occasion all sorts of campaign gossip, especially at 
a time when the swarm of lies was blacker than usual. When, 
in 1865, Mr. Herndon went to look into the matter for himself 
he found no record, and was assured that there had been no 
marriage at all : so he concluded that Lincoln, like Alexander 
Hamilto n, had been born out of wedlock. Nor is it easy to see, 

1 Abraham Lincohi, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. I, p. .3. No doubt 
liis error was due to the fact that his mother, when a little girl, was 
sent to live Avith her uncle and aunt, Thomas and Betsy Sparrow. As 
she did not remember her own parents, it is probable that gossip found 
in this fact a hook upon which to hang its tale. The fantastic Dennis 
Hanks, who lived in the same home, added his part to the fiction; but 
his yarns would never bear cross-examination. 

2 Life of Lincoln, by J. L. Scripps, New Yorlc Tribune Tracts, No. 
t), p. 1 (1860). 

^Abraham Lincoln, by Herndon and Weik, Vol. I, p. 2 (1892). 



HERNDON'S LINCOLN 321 

with such a state of facts before him, how he was so much at 
fault, tiiough, upon the advice of Horace White, he removed all 
hint of it from the second edition of his biography. That is the 
sum of the matter so far as Mr. Herndon had anything to do 
with it. 

Shortly after Herndon 's death the error was cleared by the 
discovery that Lincoln was mistaken, and that his parents were 
married in Washington County, where the record is s,till in- 
tact.^ But Lincoln himself died without knowing that he was 
born not only in honest and pure wedlock, but of an ancestry 
of which he could have no need to be ashamed. Historically, 
it M'ould not matter who were his parents, any more than it 
matters that he whom the late English king rejoiced to call his 
progenitor was a bastard ; for Lincoln is honored for what he 
was and for what he did, and it would be so in spite of any lack 
of records as to his origin. But all good men and women re- 
joice that no shadow rests upon the grave of the hapless, sad- 
hearted Nancy Hanks, who gave us Lincoln and never knew 
how great a gift he v.'as to his country and his race. 

Of the second point in dispute little need be said, as the 
record of Mr. Herndon has not been shaken, though in his re- 
markable description of the scene he might have left something 
to the imagination. That the engagement of Lincoln and 
jMary Todd was abruptly broken off on "the fatal 1st of Janu- 
ary," 1841, not without chagrin and shame on both sides, no 
one denies. Every known fact confirms it; every boot-heel of 
circumstantial evidence stamps it as true. There are those 
who deny, however, that it occurred in the manner described, 
and after the supposed error of Herndon in the matter of an- 
cestry an attempt has been made to convict him of error, if not 
of falsehood, here.- But the effort is in vain, and the facts ^ AA^^ 

1 Credit for this vindication of the good name of Nancy Hanks is T? j, p^^ H 
due to Mrs. Hobart Vawter, Mrs. Caroline Hitchcock, and Mr. Henry . i 1 * 
Watterson. — iVwic!/ Hanks, by Caroline Hitchcock (1900). W^ /»^/ I 

2 Life of Lincoln, by Ida M. Tarbell, Vol. I, pp. 174-78 (1900). It — — ' 
is strange that Miss Tarbell should try to brand Mr. Herndon as a 

liar and a forger, and that, too. upon testimony so flimsy that it hardly 
deserves notice. Those whom she brings forward to disprove the inei- 



322 LINCOLN AND HERNDQN « 

must stand as he stated them. Lincoln, torn by we know not 1 

what morbid memories and misgivings, failed to appear on the 
wedding night, and for the second time in his life walked on 
the verge of insanity. Nor is this incident more strange than 
some others in a life which had in it more of mystery than that 
of any other man of recent times. 

While Herndon was correct as to his facts, his inference 
from them was nothing short of absurd. That the proud, high- 
spirited Mary Todd held fast to so forlorn a lover for revenge, 
is hardly less believable than the legend that she foresaw his 
future distinction. Perhaps, though, Herndon was not far 
from right when he argued that if Lincoln had married Ann 
Rutledge, or some other gentle country girl, he would not now 
be known to fame. While not lazy, he was disposed to loaf, 
and needed the prodding of his gifted and aspiring wife. For 
the rest, it is enough to say that while marriage between two 
so utterly unlike was rendered exceptionally difficult, it cer- 
tainly was not one from which love was absent. As with 
Thomas and Jane Carlyle, they probably understood each 
other far better than any one else understood either of them, 
and neither was free from fault. If Lincoln suffered much 
from her outbursts of temper, over which she seemed to have 
no control, Herndon thought that she had more to endure from 
a man so abstracted, so oblivious of social arts, and so unskilled 
in weaving "those little links which make up the chain of 
woman 's happiness. " It is a severe test of a man to have his 
private life laid bare, and there is always the question of taste 
in making such disclosures. But since it has been done, it 
is but just to record that Lincoln did not fail of the patience 
and tenderness required by the conditions of his home. 

dent were none of them jiresent. Over against them is the plain state- ^ | 

ment of Mrs. Ninian Edwards, the sister of the bride, in whose home ^NJIvMI 
the wedding was to be celebrated: "Lincoln and Mary were engaged ;\.1 » 

everything was ready and prepared for the marriage, even to the supper.' I'l L- ^ ^^ 
Lincoln failed to meet his engagement. Cause, insanity!" — Life of \, j 

Lincoln, by W. H. Lamon, p. 240 (1872). Nor did Mr. Herndon in- ' ^^*^*^, 
vent this statement, as Miss Tarbell intimates. Whatever may liave been VnJiW 

his failings, he was not a liar. MO ^ 



-^ 




HERNDON'S LINCOLN 323 

Of course, the whole topic should have been veiled in that 
privacy which ought always to be accorded to such relations ; 
but Lincoln, like Carlyle, was not shown such respect. Though 
Herndon, as he assures us, was on the side of the wife, he re- 
cords the facts with merciless fidelity, perhaps because so much 
w^as said about her on this score during her lifetime. She was 
never popular as ' ' the first lady of the land, ' ' ^ but that is no 
reason why her unfortunate traits should be emphasized to the 
neglect of others which were not only more numerous, but 
lovely and winning. Pitiful was her grief after the last great 
tragedy, which so shattered her mind that she was never her- 
self again. Yet to the end she was pursued by a prying press 
in a manner so unmanly, so unchivalric, that one can find no 
words severe enough for rebuke. - 

III 

Mention has been made of the descriptive powers of Mr. Hern- 
don, and they certainly deserve mention, for they are remark- 
able alike for swiftness of stroke and vividness of detail. Ex- 
amples are many, such as the picture of the wedding scene in 
1841, of the murder trials, of Lincoln the story-teller, of the 
speech before the Bloomington convention in 1856, of Lincoln's 
mannerisms in oratory at the beginning of the great debates; 
and others of like kind. But surely his masterpiece is his 
sketch of Lincoln as a man, his figure, features, movements, 
manners, and personal traits, which appeared first in a lecture 

^Recollections of a Busy Life, by Horace Greeley, p. 408 (1869). 

2 Life of Lincoln, by I. N. Arnold, pp. 433-40 (1884). In rebuke 
of a gossiping press Mr. Arnold recalls the words of the Earl of Ox- 
ford, in Sir Walter Scott's Anne of Geierstein, when the Duke of Bur- 
gundy was jesting about Margaret of Anjou: "Whatever may have 
been the defects of my mistress, she is in distress, and almost in desola- 
tion. " The death of her son Thomas in 1871 deepened the anguish 
of this beshadowed woman. Eather tardily, through the influence of 
Sumner, Congress gave her a pension, which ought to have been larger 
than it was, as Greeley urged. She died at the home of her sister, Mrs. 
Ninian Edwards, in Springfield, 111., July 16, 1882. So dark had been 
her life since the great tragedy that death seemed like dawn. 



324 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

in 1866, and later in the final chapter of the biography. Slight- 
ly abbreviated it is as follows : 

Mr. Lincoln was six feet four inches high, and when he left 
the city of his home for Washington was fifty-one years old, 
having good health and no gray hairs, or but few, on his head. 
He was thin, wiry, sinewy, raw-boned; thin througli the 
breast to the back, and narrow across the shoulders ; stand- 
ing he leaned forward — was what may be called stoop- 
shouldered, inclining to the consumptive by build. His 
usual weight was one hundred and eighty pounds. . . . 
His structure was loose and leathery ; his body shrunk and 
shriveled ; he had dark skin, dark hair, and looked woe-struck. 
The whole man, body and mind worked slowly, as if it need- 
ed oiling. Physically he was a very powerful man, lifting 
with ease four hundred, and in one case six hundred, pounds. 
Hence there was very little bodily or mental wear and tear 
in him. 

When he walked he moved cautiously but firmly ; his 
long arms and giant hands swung down by his side. He 
walked with even tread, the inner sides of his feet being par- 
allel. He put the whole foot down flat on the ground at 
once, not landing on the heel. Hence he had no spring in 
his walk. His walk was undulatory — catching and pocket- 
ing tire, weariness, and pain, all up and down his person, 
and thus preventing them from locating. The first impres- 
sion of a man who did not observe closely was that his walk 
implied shrewdness and cunning — that he was a tricky 
man ; but, in reality it was the walk of caution and firmness. 
In sitting down on a common chair he was no tajler than 
ordinary men. His legs and arms were abnormally, unnat- 
urally long, and in undue proportion to the rest of his body. 
It was only when he stood up that he loomed above other 
men. 

Mr. Lincoln's head was long, and tall from the base of the 
brain and from the eyebrows. His head ran baclrvvards, 
his forehead rising as it ran back at a low angle, like 
Clay's, and unlike Webster's, which was almost perpendic- 
ular. The size of his hat measured at the hatter's block was 
seven and one-eighth, his head being, from ear to ear, six 
and one half inches. Thus measured it was not below the 
medium size. His forehead was narrow but high ; his hair 
was dark, almost black, and lay floating where his fingers or 
the wind left it, piled up at random. His cheeks were high, 
sharp, and prominent ; his nose was large, long, blunt, and a 



HERNDON'S LINCOLN 325 

little awry towards the right eye; his chin was sharp and 
upcurved ; his eyebrows cropped out like a huge rock on the 
brow of a hill ; his long, sallow face was wrinkled and dry, 
with a hair here and there in the surface ; his cheeks were 
leathery; his ears were large, and ran out almost at right 
angles to his head, caused partly by heavy hats and partly 
by nature; his lower lip was thick, hanging and under- 
curved, while his chin reached for the lip upcurved ; his neck 
was neat and trim, his head being well balanced on it ; there 
was a large mole on his cheek, and Adam's apple on his 
throat. Thus stood, walked, acted, and looked Abraham 
Lincoln. 

It is indeed Lincoln ; and for photographic realism no one may 
ever hope to surpass this picture. It is the portrait of a giant, 
in body and mind, slow and massive of movement, strong, gen- 
tle, and sad. One can almost feel the gaze from the small, 
gray, deep-set eyes, at once so calm, so inscrutable, and so be- 
nign, inviting trust and shaming wrong. Strange lights and 
shadows played over that rugged, mobile face, often blending 
so quickly that mirth seemed to melt into sadness, and sadness 
gleam into mirth, as if they were akin. It is a map of his life, 
and its lines range from Francis of Assisi to Grant, from Ham- 
let to Falstaff, from Rabelais to Isaiah, so that whoso studies it 
sees, however dimly, something of his own soul, and 'patches, 
however faint and far, a glimpse of what it is to be a man. If 
his later portraits, showing the beard worn at the request of a 
little girl, obscure some of the deep lines, they make the eyes 
more impressive, revealing at once the gentleness of true giant- 
hood and the wisdom of patience and pity. Of all the faces 
that look out upon us from the past, none is more arresting, 
none more appealing, none more eloquent of simple human 
majesty. 

Herndon makes note of the humor of Lincoln, but he does 
not emphasize it, perhaps because others have exaggerated it 
out of all proportion to the rest of his powers. He had scant 
patience with those who made him appear in the guise of a 
mere fabulist, a purveyor of jokes, forgetting the dignity of 
the man, and failing to see that his stories, especially in his 
hitter years, were the wrappings of his tliouglits, like the fan- 



326 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

tastic jewel cases which Socrates saw in the stores of Athens. 
If as one has well said, Lincoln combined within himself the 
strangely diverse roles of ruler and court jester, and was equal- 
ly eminent in both characters, the jester always obeyed the 
ruler. His humor, as Herndon saw it, was the pledge of his 
sanity indeed, but more often it was the frolic of his intellect, 
a stroke of laughter to clear and sweeten the air. 

In the role of a story-teller I am prone to regard Mr. Lin- 
coln as without an equal. . . . His power of mimicry and 
his manner of recital were in many respects unique, if not 
remarkable. His countenance and all his features seemed 
to take part in the performance. As he neared the pith or 
point of the joke every vestige of seriousness disappeared 
from his face. His little grey eyes sparkled ; a smile seemed 
to gather up, curtain like, the corners of his mouth; his 
frame quivered with suppressed excitement ; and when the 
point — or "nub" of the story, as he called it — came, no 
one's laugh was heartier than his. . . . Every recital was 
followed by a storm of laughter. After tliis had died down, 
some unfortunate creature, through wiiose thick skull the 
point had just penetrated, would break out in a guffaw, 
starting another wave of laughter. ... I have seen Judge 
Treat, who was the very impersonation of gravity itself, 
sit up till the last and laugh until, as he often expressed it, 
"he almost shook his ribs loose." The next day he would 
ascend the bench and listen to Lincoln in a murder trial, 
with all the seeming severity of an English judge in wig and 
gown. 

Wliat impressed Herndon more than all else was the intellect 
of Lincoln — a tireless intellect always toiling, taking nothing 
for granted, and building his thought-world from the ground 
up, as if no one had ever thought before him. It was, more- 
over, an ultra-conservative intellect, which saw life for less 
than it is, yet willing to face the drab and haggard reality as 
he saw it. With sure insight Herndon found in the very 
cast of his mind one cause of the sadness of the man. Lincoln 
was by nature and habit mercilessly, almost morbidly, an- 
alytical, and whoso tries life by such tests is doomed to walk a 
dim and shadowy path. He thought that life is ruled by 
logic, whereas logic cannot be made to compass more than a 



HERNDON'S LINCOLN 327 

tiny segment of it. Hence the superstition of Lincoln, for 
when a man follows logic to its limit he must either make the 
venture of faith or leave the fag ends of his thought to split 
and ravel into the occult. Mr. Herndon wrote much in an- 
alysis of the mind of his partner, and his manuscript notes are 
even more suggestive, at times, than his final record. We read : 

Lincoln stands high up among the mountain men of the 
world. He thought too much and did too much for America 
to be crammed into an epigram, or shot off with a single 
rocket. He was too close to the touch of the Divine every- 
where, too near the suggestions and whispering of nature, 
for such quick work done with a flash. It requires close, 
severe analysis to understand the man who was a riddle and 
a puzzle to his neiglibors among whom he lived. You wish 
to know the elements of Lincoln's greatness and the secrets 
of his power. Having been acquainted with him for more 
than thirty years — twenty years of that time intimately — 
I have formed settled opinions founded upon my own ob- 
servations. 

Lincoln's power rested on the qualities of his nature, 
which were as follows : First, he had great reason, lucid 
and strong ; he lived in his thought and thought in his life : 
•a Close, cautious, persistent, protouncl, tern Die tiiinker. 
Politics was his life, newspapers his food, ambition his 
motive power. He was never a general reader, but always 
a thinker: embodied reflection itself; an abstracted man — 
self-reliant, self-helpful, never once doubting his power to 
do anything any one else could do. He thought — at least 
he so acted — that there was no limitation to the endurance 
of his mental and vital forces. Long, severe, exhaustive 
study of the subjects which he loved, without stimulative 
food or drinks — he ate and drank mechanically, apparent- 
ly — wrought evils in his intellectual and physical system. 
There was a kind of mental exhaustion, a nervous morbidity 
and irritability. Hence, I think, came a little of his melan- 
choly and superstition. 

Secondly, Lincoln had a living, active, breathing con- 
science that rooted itself deep down in his very being, every 
fiber of which twisted around his whole nervous system. 
This conscience of his was a positive quality, the court of 
courts wliich gave final judgments from which there was no 
appeal, so far as he was concerned. He stood bolt upright 



328 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

and downright on his conscience. Lincoln lived in liis rea- 
son and his conscience, and these two attributes were the 
ruling powers of his nature, of his entire life. 

It is thought by some that Lincoln was a very warm- 
hearted man, spontaneous and impulsive. This is not the 
exact truth. He was tender-hearted when in the presence 
of suffering or when it was enthusiastically or poetically de- 
scribed to him : he had great charity for the weaknesses of 
his fellows ; his nature was merciful ; but he had little im- 
agination to invoke suffering through the distance, or fancy 
to paint it. His heart was warm enough, impulsive enough, 
for the broad field of his destiny. A President in office has 
not legally much to do with the heart, but all to do with 
justice as' defined by law. Had Lincoln been a man of no 
will and all heart this Union would have gone to wreck in 
1863 or before. Was he not built and organized for the oc- 
casion ? Was he not the right man at the right time, in the 
right place ? Would you have made him different ? ^ 

It was a favorite theory with Herndon that the consideration 
and charity of Lincoln resulted rather from his sense of justice 
than from his sympathy. Such a discussion, as President Taft 
has suggested, is hardly profitable ; but it emphasizes tht! Lin- 
coln as Herndon knew him. During the awful ordeal of war 
scenes of suffering were always present, and the heart of Lin- 
coln was revealed, prompting him to yield abstractions but 
never to surrender principle. Continuing, Mr. Herndon says : 

Lincoln was a sad man. Signs of melancholy were chiseled 
into every line of his face. IMen at once saw that he was a 
man of sorrow, and this was a magnetic tie giving him power 
over men. Now the question is, What were the causes of 
this sadness? First, possibly, was heredity. His mother 
was an uneducated, but by nature an intellectual, sad, and 
sensitive woman. Lincoln was in some particulars a very 
sensitive man. Secondly, it is probable that his physical 
organization, which functioned slowly, feebly, added to this 
feeling of depression. His fatalistic philosophy, the idea 
that he was in the hands of an invisible, irresistible, inevit- 
able Power may have contributed to his despondency. The 
death of Ann Rutledge, the sweet girl of New Salem, ;ind his 



Ms. letter to C. O. Poole, Jan.. 1886. 



HERNDON'S LINCOLN 329 

later home life, increased it. Twice he walked the sharp 
and narrow line that divides sanity from insanity/ 

It is said that Lincoln was a many-sided man. 1 suggest 
that it is more accurate to say that he was a many-mooded 
man. His thoughts and acts were tinged and colored by 
his moods. Now, put all these qualities together — his great 
reason, his living conscience, his practical sagacity, his sad- 
ness, his fatalism, his scepticism of the creeds — and run 
them out into his daily life, and you have a glimpse of the 
man and his inner life. I felt these qualities when we were 
young together, and I feel them now. Because the nation 
felt them, it trusted him with unlimited power.- 

But it is only a glimpse, for it leaves out of account the innate 
idealism of Lincoln, his mysticism, his deep unconscious poetry, 
and, above all, the persuasive and indefinable power of tem- 
perament. His sadness was largely due to his temperament, 
in which his final tragedy seemed always to be foreshadowed. 
In his temperament, too, lay that rare, unanalyzable quality 
which suffused his words and not only turned so many of them 
into literature, but gave them an influence they would not have 
had if uttered by another. To this day the smallest scrap of 
his writing has this distinctive touch and tone. There was 
logic in his speech, and humor, and human sympathy, and a 
clear mastery of words; but there was something deeper and 
more appealing. It was the quality of his temperament. In 
an unusual manner the inner forces of his nature played 
through his intellect; and when deeply stirred his whole being 
seemed to distill itself into his speech, so that to this day his 
personality clings to his words. It was a rare gift, and be- 
cause what was deepest in him was akin to what is deepest in 
the life of man everywhere, his words, like those of Burns, 
have a far-echoing charm. 

' i7i his loctiire on "Lincoln and Ann Entledj^e, " delivered in i8!)i", 
Mr. Herndon said that in las younger days, before 1835, Lincoln was 
an ardent, somewhat impetuous and impulsive man, having much more 
fire and fancy in him than afterwards, and rarely beshadowed by gloom. 
But the death of Ann Rutledge modified his nature, leaving him mortally 
wounded at heart. That sorrow subdued him to its own color, and clothed 
him in .shadow. 

■-' Ms. letter to C. O. Poole, Jan., LS86. 



330 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

As a thinker he was contemplative rather than speculative, 
such a man as Charles Lamb delighted to meet, with whom one 
"could hover over the confines of truth." His philosophy of 
life was quite simple, almost rudimentary, and easily defined ; 
yet so peculiar was his angle of mental vision, so personal his 
point of view, that he seemed to have thought it out for the 
first time. Though familiar enough, it was in a sense original 
with him, for less than almost any other man he was influ- 
enced by the labors of other minds. He dealt with life at first 
hand, built his own thought-world, and no one need be re- 
minded that such a task required laborious and incessant toil. 
Pie had difficulty in expressing himself, because he was not a 
master of the English language, and because so few words had 
the exact color and shape of his ideas. Mr. Herndon has de- 
scribed his outlook upon life with singular skill : 

To know a man's philosophy is important. When well 
known, it leads to a full knowledge of his life and explains 
many of his acts, otherwise inexplicable. It is something 
that can be appealed to in case of doubt as evidence of a 
method of life. Lincoln, to use a Christian word, believed 
in predestination. To use a somewhat more classical word, 
he believed that fate ruled and doomed everything. He was 
heard to say, often and often, that what is to be will be ; and 
no prayers of ours can change or reverse the decree : it is 
ine\atable. Another part of his philosophy was that condi- 
tions make and rule the man, not man the conditions. In 
short, he believed in laws — general, universal, and eternal 
— that they governed both matter and mind from the be- 
ginning, if there was a beginning, to the very end, if there 
is to be an end. There were no miracles in his opinion out- 
side of law. 

It would follow — and did follow — that he was a calm, 
cool, and patient man ; that he had a broad charity for the 
weaknesses, foibles, and vices of mankind. He looked out 
from his noble nature upon the stern realities of life, the 
ludicrous and the sad, the foolish and the wise, and whis- 
pered to himself, "All this was decreed, it is inevitable, it 
was to be and now is. ' ' He waited upon the logic of events 
with more than a woman's patience, and at their blossoming 
time seized his grand opportunities — caught the flow of 
time and tided himself thereon. Come what would, weal 



HEBNDON'S LINCOLN 331 

or woe, victory or defeat, life or death, Lincoln was cool 
and calm, neither despairing nor exulting, praising nor 
blaming, eulogizing nor condemning. To shout or exult 
would be flying in the face of fate, or wooing her. So strong 
was this philosophy that it was a part of his being.^ 

All this is true as far as it goes ; but during his later life, when 
the Hamlet thinker was forced to be a man of action, there was 
a spiritual growth in Lincoln which Herndon never fully real- 
ized. The pressure upon him of great problems and keen per- 
sonal sorrows, the awful moral significance of the conflict in 
which he was the chief combatant, and the overwhelming sense 
of responsibility which never left him for an hour, contrib- 
uted, with the natural deepening of soul which life brings, to 
produce, in a nature profoundly serious and naturally dis- 
posed to a spiritual view of life and conduct, a sense of reverent 
and calm acceptance of the guidance of a Supreme Power. 
While he never attained to Christian faith, he did come to feel 
that the Power, which in other years had worn the aspect of a 
stern if not indifferent fate, was more personal, less pitiless, 
and more responsive to human appeal. 

To sum it up, the work of Mr. Herndon, of which this re- 
^dew is only a sketch, is indispensable to the student who would 
know his partner and friend. He was a rude workman deal- 
ing with raw materials, and there were many refinements in 
the nature of Lincoln to which he was almost blind, perhaps be- 
cause he had little in his own makeup to give him the key. 
None the less, the Lincoln whom he portrayed is a very real 
person: a man of artless and unstudied simplicity; a lawyer 
with the heart of a humanitarian ; a thinker who picked his 
way alone ; a man of action led by a seer-like vision ; a humorist 
whose heart was full of tears ; not free from fault and therefore 
rich in charity ; as unwavering in justice as he was unfailing 
in mercy. Time, trial, and sorrow were needed to make such 
a man, and Lincoln was still growing when he died. It was a 
far cry from Gentryville to Washington, from the gawky vil- 
lage fabulist and athlete to the patient and heroic man who 

1 Mb. letter to Mr. Lindman, Dec., 1886. 



382 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

presided at the rebirth of a nation; from the "Chronicles of 
Reuben" to the Gettysburg address. But through the long 
years, as Herndon watched the unfolding of his life, there was 
a broadening of mind, a deepening of soul, a chastening of 
heart, revealing new refinements of nature, until he stood forth 
a masterpiece of intellect, sympathy, and character. 

This long, bony, sad man floated down the Sangamon River 
in a frail canoe in the spring of 1831. Like a piece of drift- 
wood he lodged at last, without a history, strange, penniless, 
and alone. In sight of the capital of Illinois, in the fatigue 
of daily toil, he struggled for the necessaries of life. Thirty 
years later this same peculiar man left the Sangamon River, 
backed by friends, by power, by the patriotic prayers of 
millions of people, to be the ruler of the greatest nation in 
the world. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Senior Partner 

I 

One who follows Lineoln down the years, from a windowless 
log cabin to the White House, does not find it easy to write 
about him calmly. He was a man of such high and tender 
humanity, of personality so appealing and pathos so melting, 
that almost every study of him ends in a blur of eulogy. No 
higher tribute could be paid to any man, yet that was just 
Avhat he did not like, and the reason why, in later years, he 
refused to read biography. He had no vanity, and being a 
man of humor he did not pose, nor did he wish any one to 
draw him other than he was. But men can no more help 
loving and praising him than they can help loving and praising 
surpassing nobility anywhere, and his very honesty in modesty 
makes him all the more winning. Of all the great rulers of 
men, he is to this day at once the most dearly human and the 
most sincerely revered. 

There is a certain mystery about Lincoln, as there is about 
every great and simple man ; a mystery too simple, it may be, 
to be found out. If he seemed complex it was because, in the 
midst of many complexities, he was, after all, so simple ; an 
uncommon man with common principles and virtues, who grew 
up in the backj^ard of the republic and ascended to power in a 
time of crisis. Our pioneer era is still so much a matter of ro- 
mance to us that many fail to see how naturally Lincoln grew, 
born as he was in the wild hunting grounds of Daniel Boone, 
having for the background of his life the wide melancholy of 
the western plain, its shadowy forests, its low hills, and its 
winding waters. His genius was homespun, not exotic ; it 
does not dazzle or amaze ; does not baffle or bewilder ; and is 



334 LINCOLN AND HEBNDQN 

thus an example and a legacy of inspiration. Yet no one who 
saw him ever saw another man like him. He stood apart ; he 
was original; he was himself, genuine, simple, sincere. The 
more we know about him the greater he seems to be in his 
totality of powers, none of which was supremely great, but 
all of which, united and held in poise, made him at once so 
universal and so unique. 

As if by an instinct of destiny Lincoln forefelt his future, 
but he was no Richelieu meditating aside the great uses to 
which Providence had put him. And surely, if ever of any 
one, we may reverently believe that this simple, gentle, wise, 
far-seeing, mighty man was raised up of God, and trained for 
his task. Amid threatening chaos he left his law office for the 
the highest place, with the sure step of power, as if it were a 
matter of course; giving his partner permission to use the 
firm name, as before, without a conscious trait of poetry ; yet 
looking to the far future with a longing that was poetry. He 
ruled a great nation as he had practised law, having in con- 
spicuous degree the three qualities which Emerson said attract 
the reverence of mankind — disinterestedness, practical power, 
and moral courage. Assuredly he was one of the marvels of 
history, and if his later fame differed vastly from his early 
life, the reason must be found in the anomaly of the man. 

One who looks back over the life of Lincoln, and the stormy 
era in which he appeared — coming out of the shadow and 
vanishing into the shadow — is left with a feeling of mingled 
wonder and awe. Yet hardly a throb of the embittered feel- 
ing, hardly a vestige of the acrimonious debates which precip- 
itated that conflict is heard today, save in the feeble words of 
some belated zealot. All may now read with philosophical 
calm, when not with tearful reminiscence, the records of those 
memorable years, wondering the while whether some wiser 
method might not have been found to abolish slavery — nor 
forgetting the dark problem in the menacing array of racial 
forces even now before us. Vain are all earthly counsels to 
determine the fate of nations in such times of crises. One who 
cannot see in all this the hand of an overruling Power, guid- 



THE SENIOR PARTNER 335 

ing the course of human affairs, must believe that our human 
life is the sport of chance, or what Tacitus called it, a Divine 
jest at our frailty. 

II 

No figure on that stage was more pitiful than that of James 
Buchanan, whose fame would be whiter had he not sat in the 
White House.^ Old and infirm, alike ambitious and timid, he 
held the reins of an angry nation with a nerveless hand. That, 
during those mournful months, he often said that he was the 
last President of the United States, is almost certainly true. 
That he argued that the government had no right to defend 
its own life, is a matter of record.^ State after State seceded 
and made ready for war, seizing the arms, arsenals, and forts 
of the nation, and not a hand was put forth to hinder. The 
navy, as if by plan, was scattered to the four winds of the 
earth. Never a leader of men, the decrepit diplomat sat as if 
smitten by the palsy, while the nation went to pieces before 
his eyes. Admirable as an adviser when prudence and cau- 
tion were the virtues in request, and when there was some 
one to lead, he was not the man for that wild and fateful 
hour. Dying in 1868, he had long outlived whatever influence 
he may once have enjoyed, and is remembered as a man who 
met a great opportunity and was not equal to it. 

Well might Lincoln, who sat at home powerless to do any- 
thing, be abstracted and absent-minded, with a cloud of grief 
in his eyes; well might he say, " I shall never be glad any 
more." But, if sad, he was calm and firm during that trying 
ordeal, willing to conciliate but refusing to compromise, while 
the shadow gathered and the plot thickened. What a pity that 
the people of the South — and the North, too, for that mat- 
ter — did not know Ijincoln as he knew them, and as all now 
know him. But the clouds were too dark for his kindly face 
to be seen, when, on that rainy February morning he said 

1 Twenty Years of Congress, by J. G. Blaine, Vol. I, pp. 2.39-40 
(1884). 

2 Becollectior.s, by Horace Greeley, p. 359 (1869). 



336 LINCOLN AND HERNDQN 

farewell forever to scenes made dear by struggle and sorrow. 
From the rear of the car he said: 

My friends, no one, not in my position, can appreciate my 
feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the 
kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have 
lived a quarter of a century and have passed from a young 
to an old man. Plere my children have been born and one 
of them is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or 
whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater 
than that which rested upon Washington.^ Without the 
assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I 
cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trust- 
ing to Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and 
be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all 
will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope 
in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an af- 
fectionate farewell. 
Of leaders of men there are two kinds. One sees the thing 
as it ought to be, and is to be, and condemns all else that falls 
below the ideal. They are reformers, agitators, and sometimes 
iconoclasts — men who see the ideal more vividly than they 
discern the way to it, dreamers who know not the slow ways 
whereby dreams are wrought into realities. They are noble 
in their fealty to high visions, and by their burning zeal they 
make men feel and think ; but by a sure instinct we refuse to 
entrust the reins of power into their hands. Amid the tangle 
of legal rights and practical necessities, of conflicting inter- 
ests and constitutional provisions, they are helpless. That 
they see no difficulties is their strength; that others see all 
the difficulties is perhaps a greater virtue; and it would be 
trite to say that both virtues are needed. These idealists. 



1 One who stood near the end of the car — Mr. H. B. Rankin — tells 
me that Lincoln was for a moment unable to speak. Tears were in 
his eyes, and he mastered himself only by great effort. When he spoke 
of his task as greater than that of Washington, there were murmurs 
in the crowd, as if some thought he overestimated his own importance. 
Springfield has long since atoned for these things, but few realize the 
envies, jealousies, and bickerings Lincoln had to endure during the last 
years of his life there. The train moved on leaving little minds to 
oblivion, as time has moved on leaving little envies to die. 



THE SENIOR PARTNER 337 

could they have the power, would no doubt blot out evil at 
once, leaving the consequences with God ; but they would blot 
out much else besides, for which they would find it hard to 
be forgiven. Such radicals, however useful as passengers, are 
unsafe pilots. 

Often has it been said that, as a fact, in the case of the 
abolition of slavery the radical and violent solution of the 
idealists had at last to be adopted.^ Apparently so; but in 
truth it was not so even as to method, much less as to results, 
as Greeley admitted, somewhat grudgingly; for the Aboli- 
tionists, if we may judge them by their leaders, were rarely 
ardent Union men. Their concern w^as to "choke down slav- 
ery," as the fiery Herndon put it, and many of them saw in 
disunion a way of escape from political complicity with the 
curse. Indeed, they were opposed to the Union because it 
sanctioned slavery, just as the radicals of the South fought it 
because it menaced the continuance of slavery. Had it not 
been for a different type of leader, who sought to realize free- 
dom through union, without sharing the bitter feeling on 
either side, one can hardly conjecture what the result might 
have been. 

The other type of leader is not less loyal to the ideal, but 
he sees the situation as it is — sees it steadily and sees it 
whole — and tries patiently and wisely to work out the best 
results with the forces with which he has to deal. He knows 
that men are slow of heart and stumbling of step ; that they 
are led by self-interest always and only fitfully by the ideal ; 
so he does not run so far ahead of the masses that they lose 
sight of him and stop ; he know^s how to get along with ordin- 

1 Garrison denounced the Constitution as a league with death and a 
covenant with hell. Parker once thought that if a State wished to go out 
of the Union, it had a right to do so. — Theodore Parlcer, by J. W. Chad- 
wick, p. 260 (1900). For all his glittering oratory, Wendell Phillips 
had hardly a rudimentary sense of constructive statesmanship, even con- 
tinning his anti-slavery agitation after slavery had ceased to be. — 
Wendell Phillips, Orator and Agitator, by Lorenzo Sears (1910). This 
is not to discredit the work done by these splendid men, but only to define 
their limitations. 



338 LINCOLN AND HEBNDON 

ary humanity. Such a leader was Lincoln — uniting an un- 
wavering fidelity to a moral ideal with the practical acumen 
to make his dream come true — handicapped by all the things 
that go to make up wisdom, yet resolute in liis patience, his 
courage, his self-control, and in his mastery of his life con- 
sistently with a high moral purpose. No leader in this land 
ever stood so close to the common people ; no one has been at 
once so frank and so subtle. He knew the people, he was one 
of them, and they knew and loved and followed him — paying 
to him, not less than to their country, "the last full measure 
of devotion." 

By instinct a conservative, Lincoln was too reverent to be 
cheerfully iconoclastic, and when forced to act by the edu- 
cative and compulsive power of events, he moved slowly, fol- 
lowing the kindly light as far as its radiance led. He refused 
to skulk behind Providence, holding himself to be as justly 
responsible for the results of his acts as for the acts them- 
selves. If he suffered himself, as he frankly confessed, to be 
guided by events, it was not because he had lost sight of 
principles, still less because he was an opportunist drifting 
with the tide. It was because, by the terms of his life-phil- 
osophy, he recognized in events the movement of moral forces, 
which he was bound to heed, and the foot-steps of God, which 
he was bound to follow. He did not presume to know all the 
will of God, which might be something different from the 
wish of either party, but so far as it was made plain he tried 
to do it. But he did not imagine, as is the way of fanatics, 
that this high faith gave him a right to over-step the law of 
the land, which he was under vows to uphold. 

Ill 

Nor must we forget that Lincoln had to do not only with a 
condition, but with a theory of State as well. While, as all 
now see, the angry debate over slavery brought on the con- 
flict, it is clear that upon that issue alone neither side would 
have gone to war. Far back and deep down lay the fatal dual- 
ism, which had been growing from the first, destined to rend 



THE SENIOR PARTNER 339 

the nation in a strife, the prophecy of which was written in 
the whole history of the colonies, if not in the annals of Eng- 
land for centuries past. No doubt the Slave Oligarchy ma- 
nipulated tliis ancient schism in its own behalf, while a political 
party, long used to rule, dared to make its exit from power a 
signal of revolution ; for there was a deal of the original man 
in the men of those days, South as well as North. But this 
would not have been possible had not the fatal dualism ex- 
isted, and unless this be kept in mind no one can understand 
that crisis. 

One must know the point of view of the South, and the 
theory upon which it acted. ^ Many Southern men — such as 
Stephens and Lee, to name a statesman and a soldier — were 
opposed to disunion as a policy, deeming it most unwise ; but 
they did not question its validity as an abstract, though per- 
haps a revolutionary, right. They sincerely held the Consti- 
tution to be a Compact, a league of Sovereign Powers, from 
which any State, for adequate cause, might withdraw at will. 
Of course upon such a theory, held by many in the North, the 
Union as we now know and love it could never have been 
built. Against the final strain of 1861 it proved but a rope 
of sand; but long before that — notably in 1814, when the 
embargo pressed ruinously upon New England — the dogma 
of secession was born, not South, but North. In fact, it had 
been invoked at sundry times in various parts of the country 
with regard to other questions than slavery, often upon very 
slight pretext. Some imagination is now required to picture 
that state of things, but we must see it if we are to know the 
supreme service of Lincoln to his nation. 

1 Of course this question was rendered obsolete and academic by 
the war, but it is the business of the student to know both sides. By 
far the most able and comprehensive review of the question, from the 
Southern point of view, may be found in A Constitutional View of the 
War, by A. H. Stephens (1868-70), formerly Vice-President of the Con- 
federacy. How sincere the Southern people were in their faith was re- 
vealed by their conduct during the war, for men do not go forth from 
warm firesides through blood, and fire, and tears, unless they are honest 
and sincere, however mistaken they may be. And they should at least 
be permitted to state what they fought for in that war. 



340 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

Nor was that all. Not only two ideas of State, but two 
ideals of life had taken root and grown on our eastern shores, 
each upon its own soil, each taking shape under its own sky. 
So long as these ideals remained apart, the nation was at 
peace, not realizing what antagonistic elements it held. If 
Puritanism was a theocracy, the genius of the Cavalier was 
individualism, and the social fabrics of the two were, by the 
same token, utterly unlike. As foreign observers had often 
noted. North and South, instead of being one nation, had long 
been two nations in all but name — divided in arts and aims, 
in social sentiment and political faith. Wlien, therefore, after 
a long period of internal strife, the cleavage came, it was a 
natural severance, and the social order, as is nearly always 
the case, asserted its ascendency over the political order. Lee 
did not fight as an enemy of the Union, nor yet as a friend of 
slavery, for he was neither in fact. He fought simply as a 
liegeman of Virginia, unwilling to invade the scenes of his 
birth and the shrines of his fathers at the head of a hostile 
army.^ With an overwhelming majority of the Southern peo- 
ple slavery was not an issue. Only a small minority held 
slaves at all, and some of these, especially in the border States, 
were Union men, while in their hearts many slaveholders 
hated slavery.- But when the debate was ended and the war 
was at hand, men were obliged to take sides, and they followed 
where their sense of duty, or their feelings of contiguity and 
neighborship, led them. 

With Lincoln, as with the South, the slavery question was 
never at any time the paramount issue in the conflict. He 
disavowed any purpose of interfering, directly or indirectly, 
with slavery in the States where it existed, declaring, as he 
truly could, that he had neither the right nor the inclination 
to do so. He was never an Abolitionist, never an advocate 
of confiscation. To the end he held, consistently, that if the 
nation was to free the slaves, it must buy them and set them 
free; but his \aew found no favor in the eyes of those who 

1 Robert E. Lee, by Thomas Nelson Page, pp. .30-56 (1908). 

2 A-utobiography of N. S. ShaJer, pp. 76-89 (1909). 



THE] SENIOR PARTNER 341 

thought it right to be unjust to men whom they regarded as 
unjust. Intense as were his feelings against slavery as a 
"moral, social, and political wrong," he would not wage a war 
to destroy it, though he insisted that it should not be permitted 
to survive a war of which it was the inciting cause. His Pro- 
clamation of Emancipation, so long held back, was a war meas- 
ure purely, for which he knew he had no warrant in law ; and 
so clear-sighted was his sense of justice, so empty his heart of 
all rancor, that he sought to qualify the rigor of his act by 
some plan of restitution. Then, too, there were problems to 
follow the freeing of the slaves which he was not eager to 
face, though others seemed to be able to solve them glibly 
enough. While it is certain that he would never have re- 
turned to bondage any person thus set free, no one knows just 
how he would have met those issues. Still, as all must see, 
these M'ere but minor questions alongside the one supreme 
problem of his life. 

As he wrote to Greeley, his one master aim was not to 
save or destroy slavery, but to save the Union — without slav- 
ery if he could, with slavery if he must — and from that pur- 
pose he could not be turned aside. He held the Constitution 
to be a perpetual compact, solemnly endorsed, from which no 
State had a right to withdraw without the consent of the others, 
and this position he would not yield. Here was joined the real 
issue in the conflict, to settle wiiich appeal had at last to be 
made to the awful court of war, both sides fighting with equal 
sincerity, endurance, and valor. Had there been such a feel- 
ing of national unity as now exists, slavery could have been 
checked and ultimately abolished without war; but real unity 
there was none. Yet the tide was flowing, and amid the slowly 
changing conditions of national life, what had echoed as a 
prophecy in the eloquence of Webster was becoming a neces- 
sity, if not a reality. So that Lincoln — in whom, as Stephens 
noted,^ the sentiment of Union "rose to the sublimity of a 
religious mysticism" — instead of saving the Union, may al- 

1 A Constitutional Viexc of the War, by A. H. Stephens, Vol. II, p. 
448 (1870). 



342 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

most be said to have presided at its birth, and witnessed its 
christening with blood and tears. His personality was provi- 
dential, and the republic of today, united and free, is at once 
his dream and his memorial. 

IV 

Surely no man new to power ever faced a more formidable 
situation than that which confronted Lincoln when he entered 
the White House. He stole into his capital by night — not 
without protest on his part ^ — while men were betting in hotel 
corridors that he would not live to take his seat. He had 
hardly a good adviser, for even Seward - — who wrought so 
nobly in keeping things intact until he arrived — lost his wits 
and talked wildly of sinking the slavery question in a war 
with one or more foreign powers. Perhaps his greatest en- 
couragement came from Douglas, who flung himself into the 
Union cause, but that great voice was soon hushed.^ Behind 

1 Eecollections of Lincoln, by W. H. Lamon, p. 46. 

2 All admit that Mr. Seward lost his wits entirely when he submitted 
"Some Thoughts for the President's Consideration," which was little 
less than an offer to relieve Lincoln of the drudgery of being President. 
But he learned his lesson, as Chase and Stanton came, each in his own 
turn, to learn; and the canny kindness of Lincoln in this affair could 
hardly be surpassed. — Life of Seward, by F. Bancroft, Vol. II, pp. 123- 
148 (1900). But it is aU wrong to portray those men as mere paste- 
board figures, as so many have done in their zeal to magnify Lincoln — 
though, judging from the remark of Secretary Fessenden to Senator 
Stewart, some of them felt, at times, like office boys. — Bermniscences, 
by W. M. Stewart, p. 172 (1908). For it is true that Lincoln was 
master of the situation. 

3 "I knew Judge Douglas well: I admired, respected, loved him. I 
shall never forget the day he quitted Washington to go to his home in 
Illinois to return no more. Tears were in his eyes and his voice trembled 
like a woman's. He was then a dying man. He had burned the candle 
at both ends, . . . and, though not yet fifty, the candle had burned out. 
His infirmities were no greater than those of Clay; not to be mentioned 
with those of Webster. ... No one has found occasion to come to the 
rescue of his fame. No party interest has been identified with his 
memory. But when the truth of history is written, it will be told that, 
not less than Webster and Clay, he, too, was a patriotic man, who loved 



THE SENIOR PABTNER 343 

him was a divided and distracted North, unwilling, as yet, 
to fight for the Union or to free the slaves, with its commercial 
interests demanding peace at any cost of principle. Garrison 
announced that the Union was dissolved. Greeley begged 
that the erring Southern sisters be permitted to go in peace. 
But Lincoln, though he moved slowly, stood firmly on his own 
feet, faced the peril with calm, level gaze unclouded by self- 
ish fears or bitter rancor, estimating the difficulties and meas- 
uring his ability to meet them. 

Seeking to conciliate both sides, he seemed to both to be 
uncertain, hesitating and vacillating. Sir Walter Scott, in 
his Eenilworth, likens the mind of Queen Elizabeth to one 
of the balanced rocks of the Druids. ' ' The finger of Cupid, 
boy though he was painted, could set her feelings in mo- 
tion, but the power of Hercules could not destroy their 
equilibrium." So Lincoln seemed to incline from the one 
side to the other of the conflicting forces about him, but 
easily as he responded to the pressure of any of them, there 
was not power enough in them all to overthrow his bal- 
ance. He had fixed his purpose upon the maintenance of 
the Union, and to this purpose any plan relative to slavery 
must be secondary. Unable to persuade the radicals of 
either side, he was yet able to hold them to his policy of 
waiting upon events, ... As so often happens, extremes 
were working to the same end — separation. . . . Nothing 
could be gained for freedom by casting off the slave States. 
More, much more, would be done by holding together. . . . 
Both might easily have been lost if the attempt to realize 
both had been made too soon, and that they were not, hu- 
manity owes to the wisdom, the patience, and the gentleness 
of Abraham Lincoln.^ 

Of course he moved too fast for some and too slow for others, 
and elite statesmen affected to regard his profoundest policy 
as a manoeuver of rustic ignorance and incapacity. His cau- 
tion was mistaken for irresolution, and because he desired to 
be just, even to the South, he was thought to be weak and 
unsteady of purpose. Never for a day did he imagine, after 

his country and tried to save the Union." — The Compromises of Life, 
by Henry Watterson, pp. 150-1.51 (1903). 

^^ Ahraham Lincoln, by F. W. Lehmann (1909). 



•AU LINCOLN AND HEKNDON 

the manner of the complacent bigot, that all right was on one 
side and all wrong on the other, knowing that there was pres- 
ent fault in the North to temper obvious folly in the South. 
He knew that slavery was fixed in the law of the land, con- 
fessed in the Constitution and sanctioned by the courts, and 
his oath of office was a vow to obey the law. Without modi- 
fying his "oft-expressed personal wish that all men, every- 
where, could be free, ' ' he was ready to secure the slave States 
in their rights under the Constitution, and even by amend- 
ment to make explicit what he knew to be implied in that 
document. But he knew, also, that slavery was wrong, and 
that it would have to go at last, because the increasing kind- 
ness and justice of the world were against it. If he would not 
consent to disunion, neither would he go to war without first 
appealing to the souls of men. Hence the lofty, half-plaintive 
words of his First Inaugural, which must have had a strange 
echo when they were uttered, but which, happily, may now 
be read as a prophecy fulfilled before our eyes : 

1 am loth to close. We are not enemies but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained 
it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords 
of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriotic 
grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over the 
broad land, will j^et swell the chorus of the Union when 
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
of our nature. 

Many have conjectured as to what Lincoln would have done 
had the South played warily, refrained from insult, put forth 
a temperate and modest manifesto, setting forth the apparent 
impracticability of a political union between peoples so rad- 
ically different in social structure, and appealing to the North 
to consent to a friendly separation. No doubt he would have 
hesitated to fire the first gun, but it is almost certain that he 
ivould liave fired it rather than see the Union, which he had 
sworn to uphold, go to pieces. Fortunately, or unfortunately, 
it was not to be so, for the South was in no temper for a wait- 
ing game. Sumter was fired upon — not without proA^ocation 



THE SENIOR PARTNER 345 

— the divided North was cemented in the flame of patriotic 
ardor, and the nation joined in a war for the Union. 



From the fall of Arthur Ladd, its first victim, to its closing 
scene, that was the saddest and the noblest war that ever 
raged — a Nemesis of national sin and the birth throes of a 
new nation and a new era. Through it all Lincoln kept his 
patience, his gentleness, his faith, and his clear, cool reason, 
his face wearing amidst the storm of battle the grief of a na- 
tion torn and bleeding of heart, while harassed by office-seek- 
ers and lampooned by critics, reviled at home and ridiculed 
abroad.^ He demeaned himself so nobly in that critical and 
testing ordeal, he had such resources of sagacity, such refine- 
ments of sympathy, such wonderful secrets of endurance, that 
no one could fail to be moved and humbled, if nothing more, 
by intercourse with him. He stood, as the central figure of 
the conflict, gentle, strong, and wise, firm as granite if need 
required, yet strangely piteous and sad, bearing insult with- 
out revenge, doing his duty as God gave him to see it ; serene 
in time of tumult, and still the center of kindness in a tempest 
of hatred. 

Simple in manner, plain of speech, liis quaint humor and 
homely ways gave him a familiarity of relation with the com- 
mon people which few men enjoy. Disasters gathered thick 
and fast upon the field of battle, and the tide of public feel- 

1 As for the attitude of the English people, it is enough to say that 
classes will be classes. The Tory press, led by the London Times, rid- 
iculed Lincoln as a baboon, a buiJoon, a clodhopper, a grotesque joker 
who sang ribald songs on a battle-field. Mr. Binns, an admirable Eng- 
lish biographer of Lincoln, reproduces excerpts from the ruffian British 
press, and they make strange reading. — Life of Lincoln, pp. ,S6(v68 
(1907). Also, Life of E. L. Godkin, pp. 197-282 (1907). On the other 
side were Cobden, Bright, Forster, Goldwin Smith, who saw that Lincoln 
was fighting the battle of free labor. Carl Marx, too, had his part, and 
no small part, in stirring up the working people. — Life of Marx, by J. 
Spargo, pp. 220-225 (1910). Nor should any record omit mention of 
the magnificent oratory of Henry Ward Beecher in the mother country. 



346 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



ing seemed at times to turn against him, but he kept his wits 
and never lost heart. Beneath a mask of careless humor and 
guileless simplicity he concealed the wiles of strategy/ and 
was often most anxiously reticent when apparently the most 
indifferent and jocular. "His 'cunning' fairly enters the 
borders of inspiration," said Evarts, in a sentence unusually 
terse for Evarts ; but it might better have been called a trin- 
ity of shrewdness, tact, and lightning-quickness of expedient, 
whereby he divined the trends of public sentiment and piloted 
the storm of war. Amid the wild passions of the hour, and a 
babel of discordant and bitter voices, he held aloft the ideals 
of peace through Union, of liberty under the law, of fortitude 
in defeat, of mercy in victory. He had no vanity, no bitter- 
ness, no pettiness, and his ingenuity of self-effacement was as 
remarkable as his unwillingness to evade duty or to escape 
censure. With his order to Meade to follow up the victory at 
Gettysburg he sent a note which revealed, like a ray of white 
light, what manner of man sat in the White House : ^ 

1 Charles A. Dana, who was assistant Secretary of War for a time, 
and very close to the President, writes: "I do not risk anything in 
saying . . . that the greatest general we had, greater than Grant or 
Thomas, was Abraham Lincoln. . . . Von Moltke was not a better 
general or an abler planner or expounder of a campaign." — Life of 
Dana, by J. H. Wilson, p. 315 (1907). He refers, of course, to the 
later period of the war. Greeley thought Lincoln was greater in political 
strategy, in which he had had long practice, and certain it is that his 
discomfiture of his formidable assailants in 1863, with regard to the 
Vallandingham affair, cannot easily be paralleled for shrewdness. See 
the tribute of J. G. Blaine, Twenty Tears of Congress, Vol. I, pp. 546- 
49 (1884). 

2 A letter from Hon. James Harlan, of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, who 
was a member of the second liineoln cabinet, to Mr. I. N. Phillips, of 
Bloomington, 111., under date of April 17, 1897, is authority for this 
statement. Senator Harlan wrote: "The President sent an order, 
privately, directing Gen. Meade to follow up his victory by an immediate 
attack on Lee's retreatmg army, and thus, if possible, prevent the re- 
crossing of the Potomac by the Confederate forces, accompanied by a 
confidential letter authorizing him to make the order public in case of 
disaster, and in case of success to destroy both the order and confi- 
dential letter. Thus much you may rely upon as historically true. Whether 



THE SENIOR PARTNER 347 

This order is not of record. If you are successful you may 
destroy it, together with this note; if you fail, publish the 
order, and I will take the responsibility. 

No one claims that Lincoln was a master of political science 
and history ; but within the range of his knowledge and vision, 
which did not extend far beyond the Constitution and laws 
of his native land, he was a statesman. For the difficult task 
assigned him he was supremely fitted. He knew how to keep 
along with the temper of the people, warming it the while 
with something of his own fervor, and surely no one else 
could have held together such a cabinet which required so 
firm, so tactful, and withal so forgiving a chief. No man, it is 
safe to say, knew better than he, equally in the game of poli- 
tics and in the larger concerns of official conduct, how to draw 
the line, and where to draw it, to bring results. He sanctioned, 
though he did not originate, the military arrests, in the sin- 
cere belief that the power was given him by the Constitution ; 
and his justification of their use was scrupulously devoid of 
sophistry. That he made mistakes in his choice of men, par- 
ticularly of military men, is admitted. Yet nothing could 
direct him or any one else to the right men except the cri- 
terion of experience, fearfully costly as it was. Grant and 
Sherman he recognized at once when they appeared. Few, 
of all those who called him a tyrant, ever charged him with 
personal cruelty,^ for he had set his heart on saving life when- 

or not these papers reached Gen. Meade I am not able to say. I had 
supposed, prior to the receipt of your letter, that this incident had re- 
mained unknown for twenty years after the close of the war of the re- 
bellion to everybody except Gen. Meade, Eobert T. Lincoln, and myself. — 
Abraham Lincoln, by I. N. Phillips, p. 94 (1910). 

1 Much has been written of the treatment of prisoners during the 
war. That there was cruelty on both sides is true, but it was due rather 
to the inhumanity of subordinates than to the ruling authorities. Libby 
and Andersonville were matched by Camp Douglas, Rock Island, Elmira, 
and Point Lookout, where the mortality of Southern men was frightful — 
due, of course, in large part, to the cold climate. But the description of 
Camp Douglas by Henry M. Stanley, who was a prisoner there, justifies 
the remark of Sherman tliat "war is hell," as truly as did the atrocities 
of Wirtz at Andersonville — Autobiography, pp. 205-215 (1909). Foreign 
observers marveled at the humanities and amenities on both sides. 



348 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



ever there was the slightest excuse : taking time, amidst har- 
assing cares, to mitigate the horror of war, and even to write 
to those who had lost their loved ones on the field of battle. 
His letter to Mother Bixby is a classic : 

Dear j\Iadam : — I have been shown in the files of the War 
Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massa- 
cliusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died 
gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruit- 
less must be any words of mine which should attempt to be- 
guile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I 
cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may 
be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. 
J pray that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish 
of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished mem- 
ory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must 
be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar 
of freedom. 

History has made record of those awful years when the brav- 
est of men, arrayed in long lines of blue and grey, were cut 
down like grass. God of dreams ! what scenes were those at 
Shiloh and Lookout Mountain, at Cold Harbor and Vicksburg, 
at Antietam and Atlanta, at Gettysburg and the Wilderness, 
while far away in Northern towns and Southern hamlets white- 
faced women heard the roll-call of the dead. Nor did any 
one suffer more than the lonely man who sat in the telegraph 
office and shook with sobs at the news of great slaughter, or 
paced the floor of the White House all night till dawn, his 
groans overheard by the watchers below. Yet in no other way, 
save by travail and woe, could the Union, hitherto only an 
abstraction, if not a mere hypostasis of memory and hope, 
become a reality ; nor was ever sin atoned for without shedding 
of blood. How fitting, then, that he who presided over that 
scene should stand upon the great battle-field of the war and 
utter those great and simple words, which are now, and ever 
shall be, a part of the sacred writings of the patriotic faith 
of this republic: 

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brouglit forth 
on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and 
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 



THE SENIOB PARTNER 349 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, 
can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that 
war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a 
final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that 
that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper 
that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot 
consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave 
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated 
it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world 
will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it 
can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, 
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It 
is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task re- 
maining before us — that from these honored dead we take 
increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the 
last full measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve 
that these dead shall not have died in vain ; that this na- 
tion, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom ; and 
that government of the people, by the people, for the peo- 
ple, shall not perish from the earth. 

Events marched rapidly ; the slaves were freed ; the armies of 
the South melted away; and the hand that guided the war 
was held out in brotherly forgiveness.^ Perhaps the men of 
the future, looking back from afar, unbiased and clear-eyed, 
will say that the noblest feat of the genius of Lincoln was 
the policy he outlined for dealing with the South after the 
war ! There was no rancor in it, no gleam of selfish pride in 
power, but a magnanimity in triumph that led Tolstoi to say 

i Lincoln's Plan of Beconstniction, by C. H. McCarthy (1901). 
Whether, amid the bitter passions of the hour, he could have carried 
out such a policy is open to conjecture; but he would have tried it. 
Southern men were surprised to know of his lenient spirit, as may be 
seen from the conversation between General Gordon and E. B. Wash- 
burn at Appomattox. — Beminiscences of the War, by J. B. Gordon, pp. 
450-52 (1903). Had the men who did the talking been as brave and 
generous as the men who did the fighting, the result would have been 
different. Alas, there were those of his own party in the jSTortb who 
regarded the death of Lincoln as a godsend to the country. — Life of 
Lincoln, by J. T. Morse, Vol. II, p. 350 (1896). 



350 LINCOLN AND HERNDON 

that he was "o Christ in miniature.'' His words had in them, 
towards the end, a tenderly solemn, seer-like quality of blend- 
ed prophecy and pity. There was on liim, then, something of 
that touch of gentleness in sadness, as if presaging doom; 
and this it was that men felt when they caught his eye, which 
so many said they could never forget. His death, coming at 
such an hour, filled the nation with an awe akin to that evoked 
by the great tragedies — something of inevitability, much of 
mystery, as impossible to account for as it is to measure the 
heavens or to interpret the voices of the winds. 

VI 

It has been said — by Thomas Carlyle — that the religion of 
a man is the chief fact with regard to him. If we seek for that 
primary thing in Lincoln, it is found not in his use of Bible 
imagery — though parts of the Bible were written in his 
memory — nor yet in his words of goodwill to the men of this 
or that sect, but in the fiber of his soul, the quality of his 
mind, and most of all in the open book of his life. In his 
elemental qualities of courage, honor, and loyalty to the truth, 
his melting pity and his delicate justice, the faith on which 
he acted is unveiled as it could not be revealed in any list of 
dogmas. His mind was so moral, and his morality so intelli- 
gent, that his faith was in him as color is in a rose, as the 
grain is in the oak. 

Of the skyey genius of Plato and Emerson he had none. 
His mind was profound and penetrating, but always prac- 
tical ; and such a mind is never radical, nor does it outrun the 
facts to inquire what the end of things will be. It deals with 
realities, not theories, suspects its own aspirations, and is con- 
tent to take one step at a time. He knew not "the great es- 
capings of ecstatic souls," and it is a pity that he did not, for 
the memory of such hours would have brightened his some- 
what arid journey with oases of lucid joy. Years of medita- 
tion had brought him a faith of his own — a kind of sublime 
fatalism in which truth and right will win as surely as suns 
rise and set. This assurance fed his soul and was the hidden 



THE SENIOR PARTNER 351 

spring of his strength, his patient valor, and his unbending 
firmness; the secret at once of his character and of his pro- 
phetic insight. Holding to the moral order of the world, he 
knew that truth will prevail whatever may be the posture 
of the hour. In his moods of melancholy, which were many 
and bitter, he threw himself upon this confidence, not so much 
in formal prayer — though that was the last resort — as in a 
deep inner assurance in which he found peace. 

Yet, for all his solid common sense, his fine poise of reason, 
and his wise humor, at bottom Lincoln was a mystic ^ — that is, 
one who felt that the Unseen has secrets which are known only 
by minds fine enough to see and hear them. The truth is that, 
in common with all the great leaders of men, he himself had 
much of that fineness of soul — a window opening into the 
Unseen, whence he drew his strength and charm. This it 
was that gave to his words a quality of their own, and they 
seem to this day full of ever new prophetic meanings. No 
man of state in this land ever made so deep a religious im- 
pression and appeal as Lincoln did in his last days, when the 
very soul of the man shone in his great sad face, in his words 
and works of mercy, in the dignity and pathos of his life, in 
his solicitude to heal the dreadful wounds of war. Such a 
character inspires a kind of awe; men bow to it, and are 
touched with a mingled feeling of wonder, sadness, and hope. 

Such a man the times demanded, and such in the Provi- 
dence of God was given to his nation and his age. On the 
virgin soil of the West he grew, a man, as Grady said, in whose 

1 For a suggestive study of the mystical element in Lincoln, see 
Ahrahcm Lincoln, by S. Schechter (1909). As a lad in far off Rou- 
mania the author, now president of the Jewish Theological Seminary 
of America, read the story of Lincoln in the Hebrew papers, and longed 
to live in a land where such a man could grow. His comparison between 
Lincoln the story-teller and the old Hebrew parabolists is most inter- 
esting. Also, Eeligious Convictions of Lincoln, by C. O. Poole (1885), 
where Mr. Herndon is quoted as writing: "I maintain that Lincoln 
was deeply religious in all times and places, in spite of his transient 
doubts. Sometimes it appeared to me that his soul was just fresh 
from the presence of the Creator." Alao, The Inner Life of Lincoln, 
by F. B. Carpenter (1867). 



352 



LINCOLN AND HEENDON 



ample nature the virtues of Puritan and Cavalier were blend- 
ed, and in the depths of whose great soul the faults of both 
we're lost — "not a law-breaker, but a law-maker; a fighter, 
but for peace; a calm, grave, strong man; formidable, sad; 
facing down injustice, dishonesty, and crime; and 'dying in 
iiis boots' in defense of an ideal — of all world types distinct- 
ive to us, peculiar, particular, and unique. ' ' Simple as iEsop, 
yet subtle as an oriental ; meditative as Marcus Aurelius, yet 
blithe as Mark Twain; as much of a democrat as Walt Whit- 
man, yet devoid of that vague, dreamy egotism; he stood in 
the White House a high priest of humanity in this land, where 
are being wrought the highest ideals of the race. He was a 
prophet of the political religion of his country — tall of soul, 
gentle, just, and wise, and of his fame there will be no end. 

Still, and always, when we look back at Lincoln, and see 
him amid the vicissitudes of his life, it is the man that we 
honor — a plain, honest, kindly man, clear of head and sound 
of heart, full equally of pity and humor, who knew that hu- 
manity is deeply wounded and tried to heal it, caring much 
more to deserve praise than to possess it — a fellow to the 
finest, rarest, truest souls now or ever to be "citizens of 
eternity. ' ' 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abolitionists: 55; convention of, 
61; and Lincoln, 62; and Hern- 
don, 71; and Prohibition, 77; at 
Decatur conrention, 88; in 1856, 
99; Lincoln's fear of, 124; and 
Democrats, 143; never forgave 
Taney, 175 note; on defeat of 
Lincoln, 238; Beecher not one 
of, 265 note; as leaders, 337. 

Adams, C. F.: 218 

Adams, J. Q. : 25; died in Con- 
gress, 25 

Amalgamation of races: Lincoln 
against, 121 

Anti-Nebraska men: 55; majority 
in Legislature, 69, 73; editor's 
convention, 88; at Bloomington, 
93 

Arnold, I. N. : on Charleston de- 
bate, 214 note; Herndon 's letter 
to, 292; history of Lincoln's ad- 
ministration, 293 ; Herndon helps, 
308; just to Douglas, 308 note; 
rebuke to the press, 323 note 

Atchison, David E.: 54 

Atla7itic Monthly: article in by 
Lowell, 145 note; article by 
Parker in, 162; review of Hern- 
don biography, 313. 

Aurelius, Marcus: and Lincoln, 352 

Baker, E. H. : 10; for Congress, 
19; at the bar, 22; on circuit, 4G 

Banks, Gov. : elected, 86 ; for Doug- 
las, 153; Parker on, 218; men- 
tioned for President, 265 

Bates, Edward: 265; Greeley for, 
272 ; named for President, 273 

Beecher, Edward: 8 

Beecher, H. W. : lectures in Spring- 



field, 83; Parker on, 84; Hern- 
don on, 87; Herndon visits, 152; 
Parker reviews book of, 162 ; and 
John Brown, 265 note; not an 
Abolitionist, 265 note; Lincoln 
visits, 267; for Lincoln for Presi- 
dent, 267 note; oratory of in 
England, 345 note 

Bell, John: for President, 265; 
nominated, 274; vote for, 276 

Benton, T. H.: 55 

Bernays, Chas: 227 

Bible, the: study of by Lincoln, 41, 
250 

Biography, of Lincoln: 289; Hern- 
don's ideal of, 291; by Arnold, 
308 ; Herdon 's motives in, 309. 

Bissell, W. H.: for Governor, 94; 
appoints Herndon to office, 115 

Bixby, Mother: letter to, 348 

' ' Black Code : " 4 

Black Hawk war: 6; Lincoln in, 33 

Blaine, J. G.: letter to Lincoln, 
235 note; quoted, 282 

Blair, Frank: emancipationist, 114-, 
159; for Douglas, 228; at Chi- 
cago convention, 272 

Blair, Montgomery : 98 note 

Booth, J. W.: 20; at execution of 
John Brown, 261 note 

Breekenridge, J. C: 167; nominat- 
ed for President, 274; vote for, 
276 

Brooks, ' ' Bully : ' ' assaults Sumner, 
94; cotton-gin dogma, 229 

Brown, John: 118; and Gerrit 
Smith and Parker, 140 ; life of by 
Sanborn, 259 note; raid of, 260; 
execution of, 261; Lincoln on, 



356 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



263 ; Herndon on, 264 ; not a Ee- 
publican, 270 

Bryant, W. C: on Helper's book, 
159; quoted by Lincoln, 171; at 
Cooper Union, 267; on Lincoln's 
speech, 269 

Buchanan, James: elected, 103; 
and Dred Scott case, 108 ; Hem- 
don on, 110; and Kansas, 129; 
break with Douglas, 130; Doug- 
las's victory over, 132; fights 
Douglas in Illinois, 133; Parker 
on, 137; henchmen hold conven- 
tion, 167; in Egypt, 210; at- 
tacked by Douglas, 224; failure 
as President, 335 

Burke, Edmund: 50; life of, 155; 
recalled by Herndon, 314 

Burns, Eobert: Lincoln's love of, 
250 

Calhoun, J. C: debate with Lin- 
coln, 10; Lecompton leader, 129; 
charged with forgery, 143 

Calhoun, J. C, of South Carolina: 
in Congress, 25 ; calls for war, 47 

Cameron, Simon: 272; named for 
President, 273 

Campbell, J. A.: at Hampton 
Eoads, 28 

Carr, C. E.: on Douglas. 189 note, 
191 note ; denies Freeport confer- 
ence, 199 note 

Cartter, David: 274 

Cartwright, Peter: 23; Autobio- 
graphy, 24 note 

Charleston, HI.: debate at, 212 

Cliase, S. P.: 148; on Supreme 
Court, 175 note ; Parker 's second 
choice, 218; speaks for Lincoln, 
231; Lincoln writes to, 244; 
named at Chicago, 273 ; and Lin- 
coln, 342 note 

Chicago: a village, 3; Lincoln in- 
vited to, 39; Douglas hissed in. 



56; reception to Douglas, 179; 
Lincoln replies to Douglas in, 
181; Trumbull's speech, 197; 
meeting of Douglas, Greeley in, 
215; convention in 1860, 271; 
mourns for Douglas, 286 

Circuit, the Eighth: 11; Lincoln re- 
turns to, 39; its practice, 43; 
story-telling on, 44; Lincoln's 
outfit on, 45; Judge Davis on, 46; 
Lincoln's love of, 46 

Clay, Cassius M.: 159 

Clay, Henry : 23, 26 ; Lincoln ideal, 
29, 269; valedictory of, 47; Lin- 
coln's eulogy of, 50; work un- 
done, 53 ; and Douglas, 59 : eman- 
cipationist, 159; praised by 
Douglas, 182; name conjured 
with, 228; Lincoln on, 229 

Cobb, Howell: 25 

Codding, Ichabod: 62; notice to 
Lincoln, 62; helps organize Abo- 
litionists, 71 ; at Bloomington, 94 

Cook, B. C: 54 note; for Trum- 
bull, 70; at Chicago convention, 
273 

Cooper Institute: Lincoln speech 
at, 266 

Compromise, see Missouri 

Compromise: of 1850, 47; fatal 
flaw in, 48; Lincoln indifferent 
to, 50 

Corwin, Thomas: 25; on Phillips's 
speech, 265; at Chicago conven- 
tion, 272 

Crittenden, J. J.: against Lincoln, 
231; letter of, 234; plan of com- 
promise, 282 

Curtis, Judge B. E.: 74; Parker 
flays, 78; Herndon on. 78 

Dana, Charles A. : on Lincoln as 

a general, 346 note 
Darwin, Chas. : and Lincoln, 254 
Davis, Judge David: on circuit, 44, 



INDEX 



357 



46 ; in Chicago convention, 272 ; 
"Lincoln ain't here," 273 

Davis, Jefferson: 6; in Senate, 25; 
quoted by Douglas, 228 ; referred 
to by Lincoln, 258 

Debates, Lincoln and Douglas: be- 
ginnings of, 58 ; best account of, 
166 note; Lincoln challenge, 184; 
places of, 186; excitement of, 
192; at Ottawa, 193-6; at Free- 
port, 200; "blue-hot," 203; bad 
manners of Douglas in, 205; at 
Jonesboro, 210; at Charleston, 
212; hard work of, 224; at 
Galesburg, 225; at Quincy, 226; 
Mrs. Douglas in, 227; at Alton, 
227; Lincoln's last speech in, 
229; Lincoln's art in, 230; did 
not end campaign, 230 

Decatur, 111. : convention of editors, 
88 ; Lincoln endorsed at, 271 

Delahay, Mark: 271 note 

Democrats, The : 6, 10 ; sure of vic- 
tory, 24; and Mexican war, 27; 
and Lewis Cass, 32 ; Lincoln ridi- 
cules, 33; and Springfield dis- 
trict, 36 ; and Pierce, 49 ; or Ab- 
olitionists, 50; flop of in Illinois 
legislature, 54 note; anti-slave 
men among, 55; insurgents, 70; 
and Lyman Trumbull, 71; de- 
feated for senate, 72; and Ne- 
braska Bill, 90; Wentworth, 
Judd, and Koerner, 93 ; defeat of 
in Illinois, 99; elect Buchanan, 
103; and Dred Scott case, 115; 
Parker on. 124; division among, 
130; fight Douglas, 134; press 
of in Illinois, 135 ; and the 
South, 139; Douglas breaches, 
148; convention of, 167; Buchan- 
an faction of, 167; charged with 
conspiracy, 175; prodded by 
Herndon, 188; of North and 
South, 200 ; indifferent to slavery, 



227; leave slave states, 229; 
fraud practiced by, 232; gerry- 
mander Illinois, 234; Greeley on, 
240; and Douglas in 1860, 242; 
Douglas speaks for in Ohio, 257; 
divided in 1860, 274; exit from 
power a revolution, 339 

Dickey, Judge T. L. : on Lincoln's 
radical speech, 57; and Lincoln, 
127; criticises Lincoln, 169, 177; 
deserts Lincoln, 231 

Dixon, Senator A.: 53 note 

Douglas, Mrs. Adele: 132; in the 
debates, 227 

Douglas, S. A.: defeated by Stu- 
art, 7 ; criticised by Ford, 7 note ; 
in Speed's store, 10; and Mary 
Todd. 14; at the bar, 22; in Sen- 
ate, 25 ; and ' ' Spot Eesolutions, ' ' 
36; in 1850, 47; dreaming of 
Presidency, 49; and repeal of 
Missouri Compromise, 53; mo- 
tives of, 54 note; hissed in Chi- 
cago, 56; Lincoln jealous of, 58; 
Lincoln replies to, 60-2; and 
"Peoria Truce," 68; debates 
with Lovejoy, 69; Herndon on. 
76; and Koerner, 89; feeling 
against, 113; praises Dred Scott 
decision, 117; denounced by 
Herndon, 118; answered by Lin- 
coln, 119-21; "a scoundrel," 
122; "genius of discord," 127; 
and Kansas, 129; and Buchanan, 
130; power of in nation, 130; 
against Leeompton fraud, 131; 
indifference to slavery, 132 ; 
Herndon on his motives, 133; 
break with his party, 134; watch- 
ed by Herndon, 135; "a political 
buzzard," 136; Parker on, 138; 
' ' dog-fight ' ' with Buchanan , 
139; denounced by Southern 
press, 140; charges Calhoun with 
forgery, 143 ; not guilty of 



358 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



Toombs Bill, 144; flirts with Re- 
publican party, 145; wins Gree- 
ley, Wilson, and Colfax, 147; 
Wilson on, 148; Parker hears 
him speak, 148 note; visited by 
Herndon, 151; defies enemies. 
152; New England Republicans 
for, 152; and "English Bill,' 
162; " Hell's Prophet, " 165; en 
dorsed for Senate, 167 ; "a tooth 
less lion," 176; the "little dodg 
er," 177; reception in Chicago 
179; opening speech, 180; travels 
in state, 182 ; fears Lincoln in de 
bate, 184; makes dates of de- 
bates, 186; calls conspiracy 
charge a lie, 188 ; hard to be just 
to, 189; lovable traits of, 190; 
as an orator, 190-1; at Ottawa, 
194; and Lincoln, 196; Freeport 
doctrine of not new, 200; bad 
manners of, 205; war on clergy, 
206; arrangement with Greeley, 
209; at Charleston, 214; com- 
pact with Greeley and Weed, 215 ; 
agrees to support Seward, 216; 
Greeley's letter on, 223; worn 
out in debate, 224; expenses of, 
224; becomes sectional, 225; ob- 
tuseness as to slavery, 226; 
quotes Davis, 228 ; elected to sen- 
ate, 238; Parker on, 239; Hern- 
don's fear of, 242; essay in 
Harper 's Magazine, 257 ; and the 
Bible, 258 ; nominated for Presi- 
dency, 274; takes stump, 275; 
vote for, 276; at Lincoln's in- 
augural, 285; his vision of war, 
285 note; goes to unify Illinois, 
285; speaks at Springfield and 
Chicago, 286; death of, 286; 
Watterson's tribute to, 342 note 

Douglass, Fred: 194 

Dred Scott Case: history of, 98 
note; decision of, 108; Herndon 



on. 111; Southern press on, 115; 
Lincoln on, 120; Douglas dodges, 
181; in Lincoln-Douglas debates, 
195; Lincoln analyzes, 210; and 
negro citizenship, 213 
Dubois, J. K.: at Bloomington, 94; 
in Chicago convention, 272; 
"damn Lincoln," 273 

Eastman, Z. : 55 note, visits Hern- 
don, 62 note; at Bloomington 
convention, 94 

' ' Egypt : ' ' against Prohibition, 77 ; 
sentiment in, 206; Herndon vis- 
its "on the sly," 207; smitten 
by a plague, 210; Buchanan men 
in, 210; against Lincoln, 234 

Emancipation, Proclamation of : 
341 

Emancipationists: 114 

Emei'son, R. W. : 83; and Lincoln, 
254, 350; and John Brown, 261 
note 

Euclid: study of by Lincoln, 41; 
on the circuit, 44; a liar, 214 

Everett, Edward: 142; fattened for 
President, 202; beating bushes 
for votes, 218; on "kangaroo 
ticket," 274 

Fatalism of Lincoln: 38, 171, 
302, 328; philosophy of, 330 

Fell, Jesse; 270 

Field, Roswell, and Dred Scott 
case: 98 

Fillmore, Millard: meets Lincoln, 
36; Know-Nothing candidate, 97 

Fontaine, Felix: 29 note 

Ford, Gov. Thomas: 7 note 

Forgery: charged against State 
Register, 123; and Calhoun, 143; 
at Ottawa, 207 

Free-State men: in Kansas, 128; 
majority in legislature, 129; fol- 
low Douglas, 132 



INDEX 



359 



Freeport, debate at : 200 ; bad man- 
ners of Douglas at, 205 

"Freeport doctrine:" 117, 199; 
influence of, 200; Lincoln an- 
alyzes, 210 

Fremont, J. C. : 97; defeat of, 100 

Fugitive slave law: 48; in cam- 
paign of 1852, 49 ; and Theodore 
Parker, 74; Lincoln on, 229 

Galesburg: debate at, 225 

Garrison, W. L. : Herndon writes 
to, 51 ; his Liberator read by Lin- 
coln, 62 note; persecuted, 74; op- 
portunity for, 141; Herndon vis- 
its, 154; solidity of, 266; de- 
nounced Constitution, 337 note 

Germans: kill Prohibition, 77; nom- 
inate Fremont, 97; Lincoln on, 
98 ; Herndon studies philosophy 
of, 254; and Lincoln, 256 

Gettysburg address: 348 

Giddings, Joshua: 25; and Lincoln, 
37; Herndon writes to, 51; 
speaks in Springfield, 83 ; scorned 
by Douglas, 194 ; at Chicago con- 
vention, 271 

Gillespie, Joseph: 70 

Globe Tavern: 17 

Grady, Henry W. : on Lincoln, 351 

Grant, U. S. : 287; recognized by 
Lincoln, 347 

Greeley, Horace: champions Doug- 
las, 145; visits Douglas, 147; 
Herndon visits, 151; argues for 
Douglas, 153 ; injures Illinois Re- 
publicans, 163; letter to Hern- 
don, 164 ; influence of feared 
175; Parker flays, 201; arrange- 
ment with Douglas, 209 ; com- 
pact to defeat Lincoln, 215; his 
course explained, 217; hurts Lin- 
coln, 219; blistered by Herndon, 
222; letter to Herndon, 223; 
helped to defeat Lincoln, 234; 



his letter of defense, 240; Hern- 
don's letter on, 245; for Bates, 
265; Kellogg after, 266; hears 
Cooper Institute speech, 267; at 
Chicago convention, 271; against 
Seward, 271 ; on Lincoln 'g health, 
287; on Lincoln's saving the 
Union, 288; on Lincoln's strat- 
egy, 346 note 

Hamlin, Hannibal: 274 

Hammond, Senator: denounces Le- 
compton fraud, 147; referred to 
by Parker, 239 ; Herndon on, 243 

Hampton Eoads: Conference at, 
28-9 

Hanks, Dennis: 320 note 

Hanks, John: 271 

Hanks, Nancy: raised by her aunt, 
320 note; record of marriage, 
321; pure memory of, 320 

Hardin, J. J.: for Congress, 19; 
killed in Mexican war, 25 

Harris, T. L.: for Congress, 63 
note; his eyes opened, 141; Gree- 
ley pleads for, 164; letter of 
Greeley about, 223 

Hay, John: 193 note; on Lincoln, 
318 

Helper, H. R. : writes Impending 
Crisis, 158; frenzy of, 15v) 

Herndon, Archer G.: 3, 4; in "long 
nine," 6; pro-slavery man, 8 

Herndon, Mary J.: 11; death of, 
284 note 

Herndon, Rowan: 4 

Herndon, William H. : injustice to, 
1 ; ancestry of, 2 ; birth of, 3 ; as 
boy with Lincoln, 4; Calhoun a 
teacher of, 6; becomes Abolition- 
ist, 8; clerks for Speed, 9; stu- 
dent and radical, 10; marriage 
of, 11; characteristics of, 18; 
contrasted with Lincoln, 21; 
their ofiice, 22 ; and Mexican war, 



360 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



27 ; letters from Lincoln, 27, 30 ; 
lectured by Lincoln, 31; warns 
Lincoln, 36; Lincoln's advice to, 
41 ; poor collector, 43 ; last Whig 
vote of, 51; studies slavery, 51; 
mayor of Springfield, 52; and 
"Peoria truce," 69; saves Lin- 
coln from Abolitionists, 71; writes 
to Theodore Parker, 72; corre- 
spondence with Parker, 75; on 
Douglas and Trumbull, 76; a 
Prohibitionist, 77 ; speech against 
rum men, 78 ; scores Douglas, 82 ; 
on Giddings and Beecher, 83; 
'•violently all right," 84; love 
of South, 86 ; mentioned for Gov- 
ernor, 92; forces Lincoln into 
Republican party, 93 ; at Bloom- 
ington, 94; on Lincoln's radical 
speech, 95 ; his " mass meeting, ' ' 
97 ; and Parker 's lecture, 99 ; cru- 
sader against slavery, 101; as a 
nature lover, 104; his library, 
106; studies philosophy, ]07; on 
Buchanan, Kansas, and Dred 
Scott, 110; predicts war. 111; 
reads public pulse, 113; appoint- 
ed bank examiner, 115; editorial 
on Douglas, 118; a bitter letter 
of 119; and a fugitive slave, 123; 
on motives of Douglas, 133 ; rad- 
ical as John Brown, 140; goes 
to Washington, 150; "looks 
Douglas in the eye," 151; sees 
Trumbull and Seward, 151; vis- 
its Beecher, 152; writes to Lin- 
coln, 153; visits Garrison, Phil- 
lips, and Parker, 154; in Music 
Hall, 154; impressions of New 
England, 156; admires Garrison, 
157; reads Impending Crisis, 
159 ; on revivals, 160 ; knew Lin- 
coln 's moods, 168 ; hears Lincoln 
read speech, 170 ; outlook on can- 
vass of 1858, 177-79; activity in 



campaign, 187; as an orator, 
187; on Trumbull's speech, 197; 
on Preeport debate, 202 ; his pol- 
itical map of Illinois, 203; tells 
of Douglas-Greeley compact, 215 ; 
denounces Greeley, 218; writes 
for Eastern papers, 218; letter 
from Greeley, 223; foresees de- 
feat of Lincoln, 233; on con- 
spiracy against party, 241; on 
political situation, 245; prayer 
for Parker, 248; estimate of by 
Zane, 251; as a raconteur, 254; 
advises Lincoln to speak in New 
York, 259 ; on John Brown, 264 ; 
represents Lincoln at Convention, 
272; in canvass of 1860, 275; 
last talk with Lincoln in office, 
278; letters to about Lincoln, 
280 ; reply to Henry Wilson, 282 ; 
letter to Trumbull, 284; visits 
Lincoln in White House, 284; in 
campaign of 1864, 287; ra;^morial 
address on Lincoln, 288; helps 
biographers, 289 note; lectures 
on Lincoln, 290; letter on Lin- 
coln, 291 ; delay of his biography, 
293 ; his store of Lincoln materi- 
al, 294 ; description of, 299 ; part- 
nership with Zane, 300; with 
Orendorff, 303; and J. W. Weik, 
304 ; tribute to by Horace White, 
306; by Weik, 305; letters to 
White, 306; death of, 309; his 
biography of Lincoln, 313-15 ; in- 
justice to, 318; error as to Lin- 
coln's ancestry, 320; not a liar, 
322 note; description of Lincoln, 
323; on Lincoln's intellect, 326; 
his portrayal of Lincoln, 331 

Higginson, T. W. : 74 

Hitt, E. R. : reporter for Lincoln, 
192 ; tribute to, 192 note 

Howells, W. D.: Life of Lincoln, 
280 



INDEX 



361 



Humor of Lincoln : 14, 44 ; Herndou 

on, 326 
Hunter, K. M. T.: 25; at Hampton 

Roads, 28 
Hurst, Charles R. : 9 

Illinois: a free State, 3; "black 
code" of, 4; slavery question in, 
7; courts of, 40; prohibition in, 
77 ; Democratic defeat in, 99 ; 
political map of, 203 ; gerry- 
mandered by Democrats. 234; 
Republicans of criticised, 243; 
ultimatum of, 244 ; endorsed Lin- 
coln for President, 271 

Illinois Central Railway : 43 ; helps 
defeat Lincoln, 235 note; Lin- 
coln's case against, 315 note 

Illinois College: 6, 8 

Impending Crisis, by Helper, 158 ; 
passages from, 159 note 

"Irrepressible conflict:" as Park- 
er saw it, 100; Seward's speech 
on, 239; Herndon on Seward's 
speech, 242 

Jayne, Julia: 17 

Jayne, William: and "Peoria 
Truce," 69; report of Lincoln's 
remarks, 171 

Jefferson, Joseph: 11 note 

Judd, Norman B. : revolt of, 54 
note; for Trumbull, 70; leaves 
Democrats, 90 ; speech in conven- 
tion of 1858, 172; asks Lincoln 
for funds, 237; nominates Lin- 
coln in 1860, 273 

Kansas: attempt to seize, 55; out- 
rage upon, 79; excitement con- 
cerning, 94; Lincoln on, 96; 
Herndon predicts slave state, 
126; again in trouble. 128; 
Douglas 's fight for, 145 ; Lincoln 
speaks in, 261 



Kansas-Nebraska Bill: 54; not 
Union-saving measures, 65; con- 
test over in Illinois Legislature, 
70; Lincoln on as a farce, 80; 
Parker on, 138 

Know- Nothing order: beginnings 
of, 49; nominates Lincoln, 69; 
Lincoln opposed to, 81; Koerner 
against, 89; nominates Fillmore, 
97; in 1856, 100; defeat in New 
England, 218 

Koerner, Gustave: article by, 89; 
in 1856, 99; suspects Douglas, 
132; article on Douglas's mo- 
tives, 146; in convention of 
1858, 172; and Greeley-Douglas 
compact, 217; meets Mrs. Lin- 
coln at Alton, 227; hears debate, 
228; in Chicago convention, 272 

Lamon, W. H.: 201 note; buys 
Herndon Mss., 301; Herndon on 
his biography, 306; his book writ- 
ten by Black, 307 

Lanphier, C. H.: and bogus resolu- 
tions, 63 note; telegram to Doug- 
las, 247 

Lecompton: convention at, 128; 
fraudulent constitution, 129 ; 
Douglas speaks against, 135; 
reason for Douglas revolt against, 
216 

Lee, Robert E. : surrender of, 288; 
on secession, 339; a liegeman of 
Virginia, 340 

Lincoln, Abraham: meets Herndon, 
4; early reading of, 5; partner- 
ship wtih Stuart, 6; at Speed's 
store, 9; debate with Douglas, 
10; as a politician, 11; charac- 
teristics of, 12; and women, 13; 
writes to Speed, 15; on temper- 
ance, 16; and S. T. Logan, 16; 
marriage of, 17; induces Hern- 
don to study law, IS; firm of 



362 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



Lincoln and Herndon, 19; as a 
lawyer, 22; nominated for Con- 
gress, 23; elected, 24; religious 
views of, 24; and Webster, 25; 
on second term, 26; and Ashmun 
amendment, 27; letter to Hem- 
don about Stephens, 28; sup- 
ports Taylor, 30; on General 
Cass, 33 ; campaigns in New Eng- 
land, 34 ; meets Seward, 35 ; not 
candidate for re-election, 36 ; and 
Wilmot Proviso, 37; as an oflSice- 
seeker, 38; immaturity of, 39; 
with Herndon again, 40; studies 
hard, 41; office habits, 42; poor 
collector, 44; buggy anl horse, 
45 ; personality of, 46 ; eulogy of 
Clay, 50; study of slavery, 51; 
careless of local affairs, 52; 
stirred by repeal of Missouri 
Compromise, 57; inner ordeal of, 
58; great speech of, 60; debate 
at Peoria, 63; and "Peoria 
truce," 69; defeated for Senate, 
71; and Parker's Webster ser- 
mon, 72; not a prohibitionist, 
77; on Kansas, 80; a man with- 
out a party, 81; pushed into Re- 
publican party by Herndon, 93; 
fiery Bloomington speech, 95; 
dry humor at "mass meeting," 
97; vote for Vice-president, 97; 
did not meet Parker, 98; an 
emancipationist, 114; aud Dred 
Scott case, 119; "big Republican 
pop-gun," 123; suspects Doug- 
las's designs, 132; will not fel- 
lowship Douglas, 149; message 
from Beecher, 152; origin of fa- 
mous phrase of, 155; reads Im- 
■pending Crisis, 159 ; thinking out 
great speech, 168; reads speech 
to Herndon, 169; conference of 
friends, 170; given direct nom- 
ination, 172; speech of accept- 



ance, 173-6; forces against, 178; 
replies to Douglas, 181; chal- 
lenges Douglas to debate, 184; 
charges Douglas with conspiracy, 
188; at Beardstown, 189; ora- 
tory of, 191-2; at Ottawa, 195; 
his view of the debates, 198; in 
a Hamlet mood, 198; "after 
larger game," 199; questions at 
Freeport, 199; on new slave 
States, 200; not an Abolitionist, 
208; sensitive to ridicule, 211; 
on negro citizenship, 212; de- 
fends Trumbull, 214; and Doug- 
las-Greeley compact, 216; happy 
over Democratic war, 224; elo- 
quence of at Galesburg, 225; at 
Quincy, 226; speech at Alton, 
228; and Crittenden, 231; de- 
feated for Senate, 233; mention- 
ed for President, 235 note; a na- 
tional figure, 236; paid own ex- 
penses, 237; tries lecturing, 238; 
saved his party, 244 ; described by 
Littlefield, 249; reading of, 254; 
"not fit for President," 255; 
"running qualities" of, 256; on 
the tariff, 256; in Ohio, 257; in- 
vited to New York, 259 ; in Kan- 
sas, 261; speech of little known, 
261; on John Brown, 263; at 
Cooper Institute, 266; and 
Beecher, 267; as a reformer, 269; 
in New England, 270; not a So- 
cialist, 270 note; "autobio- 
graphy" of, 270; endorsed for 
President, 271 ; and Delahay, 271 
note; and the Chicago conven- 
tion, 272; nominated, 274; elect- 
ed, 275; dodges office-seekers, 
277; letter to Stephens, 277 note; 
farewell to friends, 277; last in- 
terview with Herndon in office, 
278 ; an unknown man, 280 ; ' ' the 
tug has come," 283; visited by 



INDEX 



363 



Herndon, 284; and Douglas, 285; 
opposition to, 287; death of, 
288; funeral, 289; Herndon lec- 
tures on, 290 ; books about, 293 ; 
never orthodox, 302; and the 
church, 303; literature on, 311; 
on life of Burke, 314; qualities 
of, 316-18; a mystery to Hern- 
don, 319; ignorant of his ances- 
try, 320 ; home life of, 322 ; pen- 
portrait of, 324; his face, 325; 
his intellect, 326; characteristics 
of, 327-29; and Ann Eutledge, 
329 note; temperament of, 329; 
philosophy of, 330; spiritual 
growth of, 331; mystery of 333; 
as a leader, 337; his reverent 
conservatism, 338 ; his supreme 
problem, 340; difficult task of, 
342; master of men, 342 note; 
patience of, 343 ; English atti- 
tude toward, 345 note; greatness 
of in war ordeal, 345; humanity 
of, 347; letter to mother Bixby, 
348; Gettysburg address, 348; 
"a. Christ in miniature," 350; 
a mystic, 351; the man beloved, 
352 

Lincoln, Mary : 38 ; ambitious, 58 ; 
opposes Lincoln for Legislature, 
69; at Alton debate, 227; home 
life of, 322; death of, 323; ill 
treated by the press, 323 note 

Lincoln, Eobert T.: 18, 25, 269 

Lincoln, Thomas : 3 ; defense of by 
Herndon, 295 

Littlefield, J. H. : description of 
Lincoln, 249-50 

Logan, S. T. : 10; partnership with 
Lincoln, 16; ambitious, 19; as a 
lawyer, 22; defeated for Con- 
gress, 36; on the circuit, 46; in 
legislature, 70; votes for Trum- 
bull, 71; and Lamon, 201 note 

Love joy, Elijah: 8 



Lovejoy, Owen: tries to capture 
Lincoln, 61; and Lincoln, 62; 
votes for Lincoln, 62; debates 
with Douglas, 69 ; organizes Abo- 
litionists, 71; at Blooniington, 
99; at Ottawa, 194; and Lamon 's 
story, 201 note; speaks for Lin- 
coln, 231 

Lowell, J. R. : 34; on Buchanan, 
145 note; on secession, 281 

Lundy, the Quaker: 160 

Maine Law: in Illinois, 77 

Mason, J. M. : 25 

Marx, Carl: 270 note; 345 note 

Matteson, Gov. J. A.: 70 

Meade, General: 346 note 

Aledill, Joseph: suspects Douglas, 
147; editorial by, 244 

Melancholy of Lincoln: 12, 13, 29; 
on the circuit, 46; over the na- 
tion, 51; before nomination for 
Senate, 168; on eve of debates, 
185; on leaving Springfield, 278; 
causes of, 328 

Meredith, George: The Shaving of 
Shagpat, 269 

Missouri Compromise: repeal of, 
53; and a game of whist, 54; 
should be restored, 67, 89; and 
Dred Scott case, 109 

Missouri Democrat: 114, 272 

Mysticism of Lincoln: 12, 15, 29; 
Stephens on, 341; in leadership 
of, 351; study of, 351 note 

Negroes: human rights of, 66; no 
equality with, 120 ; rights of, 
212; not to be citizens, 213 

North: and repeal of Missouri 
Compromise, 55; and Drod Scott 
case, 109; and John Brown, 260; 
unlike South, 340; divided and 
dismayed, 343 



364 



LINCOLN AND HERNDON 



Nicolay, J. G.: 276; and John Hay, 
317; on Lincoln, 318 

Oglesby, Richard J.: 46; speaks 
for Lincoln, 231 

Oratory: Lincoln on, 41; of Lin- 
coln, 60, 191; of Beecher, 83; 
of Douglas, 130, 190; of Hern- 
don, 187; Lincoln as model of, 
255; temperament in, 329 

Orendorff, Alfred: 303; death of, 
303 note 

Ottawa: debate at, 63 note; the 
crowds, 193; Douglas's speech, 
194; Lincoln's reply, 195; Hern- 
don on, 196; ovation to Lincoln, 
211 

Owens, Mary: 13 

Palmer, J. M.: on the circuit, 46; 
revolt of, 54 note; for Trumbull, 
70 ; leaves Democratic party, 90 ; 
speaks for Lincoln, 231 

Parker, Theodore: Herndon writes 
to, 51; on Webster, 72; and the 
Nebraska Bill, 72; activity of 
as agitator, 73 ; and fugitive 
slave law, 73 ; and Herndon cor 
spondence, 73 ; and Herndon cor 
respondence, 75; "trial" of, 78 
on Beecher, 84; tireless worker, 
90; in Springfield, 98; in cam 
paign of 1856, 100 ; as a prophet 
101; on Dred Scott case, 124 
and Lincoln, 124; on Doug 
las, 138; on motives of Doug 
las, 139; and John Brown, 140 
in Music Hall, 154; bis famous 
phrase used by Lincoln, 155 
Herndon 's impressions of, 157 
review of Beecher 's book, 162 
flays Greeley, 201; thought 
Douglas won at Ottawa, 208 ; on 
Greeley-Douglas compact, 217; 
illness of, 232; on election of 



Douglas, 239; turns from Sew- 
ard to Lincoln, 240; last note 
to Herndon, 248 ; experiences of 
as a minister, 248; in Cuba, Lon- 
don, and Italy, 249; last letter 
from Herndon, 264 

Peoria: debate at, 63; "truce" of, 
68 note 

Phillips, I. N. : on Lincoln 's Bloom- 
ington speech, 96 note; letter 
from Senator Harlan, 346 note 

Phillips, Wendell : 51 ; and fugitive 
slave, 74; and Douglas, 133; on 
John Brown, 265 ; not a states- 
man, 337 note 

Pierce, Franklin: 49; and Kansas, 
79; Parker on, 239 

Pioneers : of Illinois, 3 ; Herndon 
lectures on, 295-98 ; not gloomy, 
316 

Polk, J. K.: and Mexican war, 26; 
and Lincoln, 27, 33; Von Hoist 
on, 26 note 

"Popular Sovereignty:" 48; and 
Douglas, 54; and Lecompton 
fraud, 131 ; killed by Drcd Scott 
case, 183 ; inconsistency of Doug- 
las on, 207; Lincoln ridicules, 
211 

Preachers : oppose Douglas, 56 ; and 
Prohibition, 77; Douglas's war 
on, 206; oppose Lincoln. 276 

Prentice, George D.: 114 

Prohibition : Herndon 's activity 
for, 75; campaign for, 77; Ger- 
mans kill it in Illinois, 77 

Pugh, Senator, of Ohio: 134, 162 

Quincy: debate at, 226 

Rankin, H. B.: in Lincoln and 
Herndon office, 253; hears Lin- 
coln's farewell speech, 336 note 

Ray, C. H.: 88, 199 



INDEX 



365 



Reconstruction: Lincoln's plan of, 
349 note 

Reed, Rev. J. A.: lecture of Lin- 
coln's religion, 301 

Religion of Lincoln: 24; Rev. Reed 
on, 301; Herndon, 302; in his 
character, 350 

Republican, The Daily: Herndon 's 
editorials in, 118, 121 

Republican party: 55; beginnings 
of, 80; Lincoln not of fiist lead- 
ers, 81; Herndon in organization 
of, 82; Koerner on, 89; Lincoln 
pushed into by Herndon, 93 ; 
and Lincoln 's Bloomington 
speech, 96; angry at Douglas, 
117; growth of in Illinois, 125; 
courted by Douglas, 136; of- 
fends Douglas, 145 ; and Greeley, 
146 ; Douglas tries to divide, 148 ; 
Greeley thinks ideal too high, 
153; charge of sectionalism, 159; 
convention of in 1858, 172 ; effort 
to lower ideal of, 215; its course 
in Illinois explained, 217; and 
Greeley, 219; defended by Lin- 
coln, 227; fight of in Illinois, 
244; well-drilled, 246; and John 
Brown, 260 ; convention of in 
Chicago, 271; victory of, 275 

Rhett, R. B.: 25 

Richardson, W. A. : 90, 120 

Rutledge, Ann: 5, 13; memory of, 
277; Herndon 's Lecture on, 295; 
shadow of, 328, 329 note 

Sanborn, F. B.: and John Brown, 

259 note, 261 note 
Schurz, Carl: 226, 231 
Scripps, J. L. : 96, 178, 280, 320 
Secession: Lincoln on, 263; Lowell 

on, 281; Sherman on, 281; 

Greeley on, 281; sweeps South, 

281; Parker on, 337 note; in 

North, 339 



Seward, W. H. : 28 ; meets Lincoln, 
35; on Douglas, 146; Herndon 
visits, 151; "irrepressible con- 
flict" speech, 174 note; Douglas 
for, 216; Herndon on, 242; 
forces of led by Weed, 272; and 
Lincoln, 273; defeated for nom- 
ination, 274; speaking tour of, 
275; mistake of, 342 note 

Shakespeare: study of by Lincoln, 
41, 198, 250 

Sherman, John: 158-9 

Sherman, W. T.: 281, 287 

Shields, J. : 17 ; for Senate, 59 ; and 
Douglas, 70; story of duel, 152 

Slave Power: 43; wanted Mexico, 
85; and Dred Scott case, 109; 
fraud of in Kansas, 128; and 
Central America, 142; Douglas 
fights, 148; land lust of, 202; 
last effort to scare North, 283; 
used dualism of nation, 339 

Slavery : in Illinois, 3 ; agitation of, 
7; in District of Columbia, 37; 
change of sentiment concerning, 
48 ; like a snake, 49 ; study of by 
Lincoln, 51; Lincoln puzzled by, 
64-5 ; Douglas indifferent to, 132, 
149 note; and the Union, 168; 
insolence of, 169; in new States, 
200; destroyed, 349 

Slaves: 15, 35, 73; Douglas did not 
own, 149 note; as property, 226; 
insurrection of, 260 

Slidell, Senator: 225 

Smith, Gerritt: 140, 261 

South, the: Lincoln's attitude to- 
ward, 64, 65, 67; and Kansas, 
79; secret hatred of slavery in, 
81, 85, 340; love of by Herndon, 
86; and Douglas, 134; Impend- 
ing Crisis of, 158 ; population of, 
158; originally anti-slavery, 158 
note; and "Preeport doctrine," 
200; and John Brown, 260; 



366 



LINCOLN AND HEENDON 



swept by secession, 281; did not 
know Lincoln, 335, 349 note; its 
views of Constitution, 339; sin- 
cerity of, 339 note; unlike the 
North, 340 

Speed, Joshua: 6, 9, 15, 16, 79 

Speed, Mary: 15 

Stephens, A. H. : 25, 28 ; at Hamp- 
ton Eoads, 28; memories of Lin- 
coln, 29; and Whig club, 35; 
letter to Lincoln, 277 note; A 
Constitutional View of the War, 
339 note; on Lincoln's mysticism, 
341 

Stetson, F. L. : 68 

Stowe, H. B.: 48 

Stuart, J. T. : 6; partner of Lin- 
coln, 11, 14; warns Lincoln, 50; 
rebukes Herndon, 93 

Sturtevant, Julian, 8 note 

Sumner, Charles: 47, 51; Herndon 
on, 83; on Kansas, 94; assaulted, 
94; re-election of, 103; and 
Douglas, 148; gets pension for 
Mrs. Lincoln, 323 note 

Supreme Court: and Dred Scott 
case, 109; Herndon on, 110, 112; 
Lincoln on, 120; in Lincoln- 
Douglas debates, 195 

Swett, Leonard: 46, 177, 317 

Taft, W. H.: 328 

Taney, Judge: and Dred Scott 
case, 109; and Douglas, 117, 183; 
his death, 175 note; swears Lin- 
coln into office, 285 

Taylor, Zachary: 29 

Territories: a national trust, 64; 
slavery not to be extended into, 
66 

Tolstoi: 349 

Toombs, Eobert: 25, 35; his Bill 
on Kansas, 138, 214 

Townsend, George Alfred: 299 

Trumbull, Lyman: 70, 71; Hern- 



don on, 76; and Kansas, 94; 
' ' big Republican pop-gun, ' ' 123 ; 
Herndon visits, 151; for Presi- 
dent, 173 note; Douglas attacks, 
194; speech on Toombs Bill, 197; 
links Douglas and Toombs, 207; 
Lincoln defends, 214; and Doug- 
las-Greeley compact, 216; letter 
from Herndon, 284 
Twain, Mark: 352 

Uncle Tom's Caiin: 48 

Union, the: in danger, 67; disturb- 
ed over Kansas, 79 ; and Dred 
Scott case, 109; and slavery, 
168; and new slave states, 200; 
Lincoln on, 263; broken by se 
cession, 281 ; and Lincoln and 
Douglas, 285; dualism of, 338; 
Lincoln's problem, 341 

Van Buren, Martin: 32, 35 
Virginia: attitude toward slavery 

and secession, 48 note: Lee a 

liegeman of, 340 

Walker, B. J. : 129 note, 139 

Ward, Artemeus: 277 

War: Black Hawk, 6; Lincoln's 
part in, 33; with Mexico, 25; 
Parker predicts between the 
States, 138; Herndon on, 141; 
Douglas's vision of, 285 note; 
comes at last, 345; great battles 
of, 348 

Washburne, E. B.: 70, 71, 177, 199; 
Lincoln writes to, 283; at Ap- 
pomattox, 349 note 

Watterson, Henry: 29 note; at in- 
augural of Lincoln, 285; bio- 
graphy of Lincoln, 311 note; tri- 
bute to Douglas, 342 note 

Webster, Daniel: 25, 47; complains 
of South, 48; and Lincoln's ora- 
tory, 61 ; and Douglas, 63 ; Park- 



INDEX 



367 



er on, 72 ; model for Lincoln, 173 ; 
and Cooper Institute address, 268 
note 
Weed, Thurlow: 36; on Helper's 
book, 159 ; in compact with Doug- 
las, 215; and Chicago convention, 
271; Seward's leader, 272 
Weiss, John: 75, 148 note 
Weik, J. W.: 35 note, 97 note; 
owns Lincoln scrap-book, 177; 
and Herndon, 304-5 
Wentworth, John: 90, 93, 99 
Whig party: 24, 25; evades slav- 
ery issue, 30; Taylor candidate 
of, 32; goes to pieces, 37; Lin- 



coln clings to, 67; unites with 
Republicans, 221 

Whitman, Walt: 254, 352 

Whitney, W. C: 45 note, 96 note, 
272 note, 315 

White, Horace: 56, 61; on "Peoria 
truce," 68; on Charleston de- 
bate, 214 note; on Cooper Insti- 
tute address, 286 note ; and Hern- 
don biography, 304, 308, 321 

Wilson, Henry: 148, 222, 281 

Yates, Richard: 99, 223, 278 

Zane, Charles S.: 251, 274, 300, 
303 



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